Building a program is never easy. It takes a lot of work from both the coaches and the players.

And perhaps the toughest aspect of building a program is getting the athletes to "buy in."Lehighton girls basketball head coach Eric Gidney will enter his fourth season at the helm and has seemed to build a solid foundation for the future. A steady rise in win total, culminated in an 11-12 season last year, with an opening round loss in the postseason to District 11 3A champion Southern Lehigh.Now, with the Indians returning three of their top four scorers from a season ago, Gidney knows it's time for his ballclub to take the next step."There were games last season that came down to a possession or two that we looked back on and said that we wished we finished better. One of our goals this season is to eliminate that," said Gidney. "If we're in position to win the game, that's what we want to do and we have the experience returning this season to be able to do that."Skylynn Faust (Jr. 12.36 ppg), Aubrey Blasiak (Jr. 10.50 ppg), and Jada Whiteman (Sr. 3.50 ppg) will be counted on to carry the scoring load for the Tribe this season. Also, expected to see time is Julia Frey (Jr.), Savannah Buchinsky (Jr.), Brenna Long (So,), Emily Miller (So.), Lillian Brown (So.), Carlee Young (Fr.), and Alexis Pantella (So.).Pressure will be Lehighton's team identity on both sides of the ball. Gidney feels his team is best when its out in transition causing chaos, while getting quality shots on the offensive end of the floor."We're going to be a high energy and high pressure type of team," said Gidney. "We want to get up and down the floor as much as possible. We run a lot of fast break sets and on defense we really want to create offense for ourselves by creating turnovers that will turn into easy transition buckets."There's no better time to play basketball in Pennsylvania than in the summer months and the Indians took full advantage of that this offseason. Lehighton came away with a very successful summer basketball campaign where they went 22-5 overall and took home a Catasaqua Girls Basketball League championship."We really had a great summer and we're looking to build off that. I think it's really helped with our girls' confidence and it showed them that we can compete with some really good basketball teams," said Gidney. "In the Schuylkill League, especially in Division 1 you're going to see great competition, so playing as well as we did this summer really helps there. But we've been adamant to the girls, that the summer is over and this is a whole new ballgame."