Correspondent file photo / Lowell Spencer. Springfield’s Jameka Brungard puts up a floater in traffic during a game against Heartland Christian last season.

NEW MIDDLETOWN — Last year, the Springfield Tigers had much to celebrate at the end of a 20-8 season, which included a Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference – Scarlet Tier conference championship.

This season, the team looks nearly identical and hopes to replicate the success of last year.

With the team only losing one player from last season, Springfield head coach John Matisi believes the success the returning players had, as well as being battle-tested, will contribute to the Tigers’ continued success this year.

“They’ve been really in good spirits this year and are really positive, which is a nice thing and made that transformation into the leaders of the team,” Matisi said. “Success breeds more success, so it’s one of those things where you win a couple of close games and you feel like, ‘hey, this is just what we do and you expect to win.’ That’s a lot of the battle sometimes when you’re in close games and in (playoff) tournament games. The team that’s been there before and has done it is going to have the advantage. We’ve really been through the battles the last couple of years.”

Returning to the floor for Springfield this year are seniors Jameka Brungard, Kendall Maughan, Mariana Tuscano and Karigan Mullen, as well as juniors Maren Vinkler and Regan Rogenski and sophomore Kristina Vecchione. Matisi said those seven will be crucial to Springfield’s success this year.

“We’re going to run them through and they’re all going to play a lot. But with the way that we play, everyone’s going to have to be ready,” he said. “If you’re in there, you’ve got to be able to play.”

One hole in the offense, however, is at the point guard position. Matisi said replacing the lone graduate Ava Vecchione is no small task. He noted that the Tigers are trying to replace her by committee, rather than just one individual player.

The team, however, will operate generally the same as usual — focusing on being sound defensively and putting up more shots on offense.

“It doesn’t matter how good your offense is if you can’t get stops when you need them,” Matisi said. “If you can’t step up and be able to take away the stuff that the other team wants to do, you’re not going to be in games sometimes because the shots might not always be falling, so it all starts with our defense.”

For his team this year on offense, Matisi said he also wants his girls to shoot the ball and score more. He added that the team’s experience in what any given defense will throw their way will base their offense around what any defense shows during the course of the game.

“We need the other seniors and the rest of the team to be threats around (Brungard). That was one of the things we got into at the end of the year last year. Teams could really pack it in against us,” Matisi said. “We’re really stressing for everyone to look for their shot. We’ve got a lot of shots up in practice and we’ve done a lot of offensive skill work.”

The quartet of Tuscano, Maughan, Mullen and Brungard will be tasked with leading the team. Matisi has high hopes for the team to step up and support Brungard by shouldering some more of the scoring.

Tuscano, Maughan and Mullen, Matisi added, are all capable of scoring 15 or more points on any given night. He also said Rogenski is good at getting to the basket and has developed her shot well in the offseason.

“We need them to take some of the weight off of (Brungard). Sometimes they defer to her a little too much,” Matisi said. “We’ve done a better job of getting everyone involved and stressing to them that they need to be able to score.”

Matisi enters his fourth year at the helm of the program at Springfield. The current seniors, he said, have been with him since the beginning and know what it takes for the team to be successful and set good examples for the younger members on the team.

“We’ve had kids speak up in practice when the younger kids might not be doing something the right way or if, even as a team, we’re kind of dragging,” Matisi said. “I think it’s great because if something like that comes from the coaches, it’s not as effective as if it was coming from the players.”

That leadership from the seniors is felt in a strong way, Matisi added. He noted that Brungard is the de facto leader on the team due to her consistency since Matisi took over the program. He said he’s also seen strong leadership from Mullen and Maughan in terms of pushing the younger players in practice. However the leadership component doesn’t fall on one single person, he said.

“They’ve all done a great job with being leaders for us,” he said.