For the first time since 1987 Tom Heithoff won't be leading the charge for the St. Albert girls basketball team. Heithoff put away his whistle after 279 career coaching victories after last season, but while his familiar face won't be on the bench this year, another familiar one will. Long time St. Albert assistant Gary Rindone, who was the assistant coach for the St. Albert boys for seven years and the girls assistant since 2000. slides up one spot on the bench as he will take on the head coaching duties this season.

"I'm very excited about getting going here," Rindone said. "I've been an assistant coach for a long, long time. You always have that in back of the mind. "There are things that Tom has done in the past, and things I learned from (former St. Albert coach and current A. L. coach Dick) Wettengel. You try to take the best you have from working with them and add our own personal touch to it." After last season's 2-16 mark, Rindone is hoping to see the Saintes get back to their old ways.

"We have a good tradition at St. Albert and were going to try to get back to our winning ways" he said. Rindone has enlisted the help of former Iowa School for the Deaf A.D. and basketball coach Dan Gradoville, who manned the sidelines for 24 years at ISD. "I'm extremely excited about him being on my coaching staff; Rindone said. "You can't get very many assistant coaches with the experience that Dan has." Also helping the squad is former St. Albert multi-sport standout Melissa Respeliers, who played a key role on several state qualifying teams, including the runner-up squad in 2000.  Andy Assmann will be the team's freshman coach. "We're really excited about the coaching staff," Rindone said.

The first order for the Saintes will be to replace the 24 points lost to the graduation of Gina Assmann and Aileen Mooney. Besides the duo, St. Albert was a pretty young bunch last season, but should be able to grow on that experience. "We do have experience back, but we're still pretty young," Rindone reminded. The Saintes return three starters to the lineup in Krista Kennebeck, Amy Ryan and Becky Assmann. Trevour Yates and Becca Gradoville, both sophomores, also saw time starting last season. Taylor Russell. a 6-foot-1 transfer student, saw plenty of court time with Shenandoah last year, including a nine-rebound performance against the Saintes in a postseason game.

Also back are senior Beth Hamling, Jennifer Liston, Morgan Wickersham, Allison Mooney, Melanne Hilderbrand, Kelsey Knudsen and Carolyn Koch. "We haven't decided who's starting or anything," Rindone said. "We're still looking for some people to step up." While much of what Rindone's squad does is familiar, the new coach said he's been adding a few new wrinkles. "Were showing them some new stuff. We're putting in the up-tempo style and trying to get them to take advantage of what the defense gives them," he said.

"We're kind of changing things on offense because of what we have. We have a lot of speedy athletes so we might as well take advantage of it." Rindone said his team, which opens Nov. 21 with a home game against Atlantic, is looking toward continued improvement this season.

"We haven't gotten together and talked about goals yet, the one thing we have talked about is trying to improve all the time," he said. 'We're trying to make sure we're better than we were yesterday and we're going to try to do that in games." With the young squad might come some early-season lumps.

"We expect a lot of growing pains," he said. 'Early on we're going to let them make mistakes and try to learn from those mistakes they make so as the season goes on they can improve. We're giving them the freedom to play and have fun and hopefully they can learn from that. `By the end of the year, maybe well have a shot of making some noise, but we're trying not to look too far ahead."

Jeff Deluca - Daily Nonpareil -11.19.06