Three years ago the Nashoba Girls Basketball Team had a 5-15 record. Just two seasons later the team experienced the most successful season in Nashoba Girls Basketball history. NGB won a division II championship and they played in the state finals, suffering a tough loss to Medfield.

Cut to this year, the 2014 season. NGB went 20-0 in their regular season. Another feat that no other NGB team had accomplished.

Over the past three years players have come to and left the Nashoba team, but the starters have remained the same. Erin Cressman, Cecilia Burke, Kelly Poole, Nikkiah Snoddy, and Emmalie Keenan have been the starting five for the past three years. They’ve also been playing together since 5th grade, so they’ve “enjoyed experiencing this upward climb together” says captain Emmalie Keenan.

Even though the five have been focused on basketball for as long as they can remember, they also have other passions. Erin Cressman is an all-star rebounder, and some of her idols are WNBA players, but there’s more to this player. Cressman says that she really likes science and math and that she “wants to do engineering” more specifically biomedical.

Kelly Poole is the team’s stealing and assist machine. No one runs the offense better than the Poolinator, as the team calls her. There is more to this leader than some on-court skills though. Kelly has come to find that she “really enjoys kids, especially watching them learn and grow”. This interest has opened up her mind to the possibility of teaching in the future.

Emmalie Keenan, one of the team’s resident three-point-shooters, also thinks that she may want to teach in the future as well, but for different reasons. Over the years she’s “fallen in love with the German language”. She’s decided she wants to become a German teacher and has picked her college next year by the “basketball team and the strength of their German program”.

Each member played a crucial role as the ladies restarted their drive for the Central Mass Championship, with Medfield vengeance on their minds. The team opened their postseason run with a meeting with Auburn. What ensued was one of the most exciting massacres a fan could’ve seen. A 66-43 victory over the Rockets from Auburn boosted Nashoba into the championship game they had been waiting for for over a year. The ensuing Saturday, Chieftain faithful and the lady ballers filed into Harrington Auditorium at WPI to complete their mission. Thirty two nail biting minutes of back and forth basketball proved to be not enough as the game crept into overtime. Momentum swayed even more in overtime before Nashoba put their foot down. On the back of Poole’s massively clutch three pointer, Nashoba stole the lead for good. Minutes later their mission was complete.