After a couple of successful seasons, Palmerton girls basketball head coach Rodney Strohl finds things a little different this year. But he's still his old, optimistic self.

Strohl lost six seniors from a squad from a year ago that finished 20-5 overall and 14-3 in the Colonial League.And one of those seniors was Jade Farquhar, two-time Times News Girls Basketball Player of the Year, that has taken her game to the next level at Millersville University.Another was Madison Mummey, who is also still playing, taking her talent as a member of the Muhlenberg College girls team.Add to that other starters Abby Reimer and Lyndsey Nemeth, plus Janel Tracy, who was injured most of the season and Susan Missal off the bench, you might say the cupboard is bare.Don't tell Strohl that.He might only have eight girls on this year's varsity team, but he's building it around sophomore Linnaea Leister, who took over when Tracy went down, and girls that came off the varsity bench and a couple of JV's."We're a little thin with eight girls out, but they are eight hard working girls," Strohl said. "We have three seniors, two juniors and three sophomores."We're just working on the basics keeping it simple. We don't have the varsity experience right now except for two people, so we'll see what happens."Leister, a 5-7 sophomore guard, has the most experience and senior Erika Beers, also 5-7, had the most playing time off the bench last season."We'll do a variety of things, whatever dictates against that team offensively and defensively," Strohl said.Strohl is counting on his senior leadership in Beers and Lila Goodwill and newcomer Abby Shupp who came out for the first time. He's also counting on Leister, who played a lot last year, to be a leader on the floor also.The coach is also looking at juniors Tyra Wentz and Hailey Muniz along with sophomores Paige Frantz and Taylor Hirochek, who played together last year on the JV team to chip in."They're looking strong," said Strohl. "There is some good continuity there of those young girls. We went to team camp together so I'm hoping by playing games together now they just need to get used to the faster pace at the varsity level."Strohl said that every girl on the roster will be playing every night."Right now I have a starting five to begin the season with," Strohl added. "I want to see the younger girls gain the experience on the varsity level, then we'll go from there."This year, the Lady Bombers won't have a junior varsity team. Instead of playing the 7th, 8th and 9th graders up on the JV level, the school has started a middle school team and a junior high team."We had four ninth graders out and felt it was better to play with eighth graders in the junior high and there was enough seventh and eighth graders to form a middle school team as well," Strohl said. "Sometimes you have to take three steps back to get going forward again so that's what we're doing. We're going to try and play as many girls as possible at all levels so they get that game experience."Strohl said his goal is to still go after a win in every game."We're not going to back down from anybody," he said. "I never put wins and losses out there. Our goal is always to make the playoffs if possible. Everyone is going to have to rebound. Everybody is going to have to play good "D". It just comes down to us playing hard and I know the girls are doing that, so hopefully that will carry over to game time."