Joe Berezwick has been around the Tamaqua girls' basketball program for nearly two decades.

In 14 of his last 17 years with the program, the seasoned varsity coach has seen his Blue Raiders extend their regular season into the District 11 playoffs.But last season, for the first time in 12 years, the Blue Raiders didn't make it there with a 1-21 overall record.Berezwick isn't going to let one season alter his trust in Blue Raider program."We have a great group of girls who are working very hard each day to get better from where they were a year ago," Berezwick said. "Everything we do we are trying to turn into a positive."We still may be a few years away from getting back there but this team will start us heading in that direction we had become so accustom to."The Blue Raiders, who didn't graduate a single player from last year's squad, will be led this season by a core of seniors in Bailey Hartung, Paige Demetriades, Brianna Wittig, Emily Pratka and Vanessa Solt. In addition to his upperclassmen, the Blue Raiders had some underclassmen who broke the lineup last season and got some valuable minutes. Those Blue Raiders are juniors Alexis Baddick and sophomores Bella Ligenza and Mackenzie McVicker.Hartung, Demetriades, Wittig, Pratka and Solt all saw action in all 22 games. Baddick only missed one game."Going into last season, we tried to prepare them as a coaching staff the best we could," Berezwick said. "There's no substitution for experience. Now, going into this year, what they experienced last year is kinda like eye's wide open now. So, they understand it much better."You can just see the difference in their demeanor. How they are handling things and just knowing the challenges and obstacles that are in front of them with a much better understanding now."Last year, Demetriades averaged 8.23 points per game while Solt finished with a 6.41 ppg. average. No one else on the team averaged more than three points a game, however."We really needed that third or fourth kid to step up every night and we didn't have that," Berezwick said. "This year, we're trying to have other people really step up their offensive game. In addition to some of our upperclassmen, Kristin Jones is an incoming freshman who has really shown signs of helping us on that end of the court."So, we're hoping to be able to give Paige and Vanessa an extra third or fourth scorer that will take the pressure off of us on the offensive end to score some points and take pressure off our defense."It's going to take some time to get everything to fall in place, especially against a tough Schuylkill League schedule, but Berezwick has lightened the expectations for his Blue Raiders and made it more feasable for the whole program to forget about the past."Improvement from a year ago," said Berezwick when asked about a goal for this season. "We will not be measuring the season by wins and losses. But how we are able to compete with the teams on our schedule. As the season goes on, we hope to get better with each game."