St. Louis Sharks girls basketball coach Brian Tomanek has good reason to be pleased with his team so far this
season.
The Sharks have gotten off to an 8-3 start overall and 5-3 in the TVC West.
“So far, we’ve done ok,” Tomanek said. “We’re pretty young and we’re pretty athletic. We’re trying to put together
our offense. It’s a new coaching staff and new scheme. I think we’ve won most of the games we’re supposed to win
so far. We lost to Hemlock but they’re a pretty good and pretty experienced team with a lot of success the last
couple of years.”
It’s Tomanek’s first season of coaching. The Sharks were 10-11 last year.
“We have talent and we have girls that work hard,” Tomanek said. “Last year, they got into a slump and things kind
of fell apart. We’ve been trying to focus our team around defense because we’re athletic. You can do well on
defense with effort and things like that. We’ve been trying to go all out on defense.”
One of the top players and top scorers has been Allison Taipalus, who is averaging 12 points and seven rebounds a
game.
“She does a lot of good things for us,” Tomanek said.
Another standout is Chloe Pestrue, a senior guard, averaging eight points and eight rebounds a game.
“She also averages around four assists,” Tomanek said. “She does a lot of different things for us.”
Brook Filipiak is averaging five points and five steals a game.
“She’s one of our better defenders,” Tomanek said.
He’s hopeful for the rest of the season.
“Our goal is to finish as far up in the conference as possible,” he said. “Then we’ll see what we can do against
Hemlock in the playoffs. We have them first round.”