Madawaska Owls Girls Have Hopes Set High

The Madawaska Owls girls squad is enjoying a great start to the season at nine and one. The Owls return four starters from last year's team which lost in the prelims to Piscataquis, but that's in the past, this year's team believes they have the talent to take Class C by storm.

"We all have been playing together since we were like third graders second graders so we work really good together we have a lot of chemistry," senior guard Brianne Thibeault said.

Chemistry you develop over time, the Owls have something you can't teach: height.

"We have a lot of height on this team, we have three people that are about six foot," senior center Jenna Dugal said. "We're a very old team we have three senior starters and the rest are juniors we have very good freshman and sophomores coming off the bench."

Brianne Thibeault at five eleven is the Owls point guard and Jenna Dugal at just over six feet anchors the post. Having that kind of inside outside presence is a great asset for their head coach Dean Gendreau.

Those two girls are very athletic girls," head coach Dean Gendreau said. "They've played together for a long time starting in small rec ball and AYBL, so they're familiar with each other and they like to play ball, so it makes things a lot easier."

Thibeault and Dugal also played soccer together. Their season was brought to an abrupt halt by the Ashland Hornets, but they're using that experience to motivate them on the basketball court.

"That loss hurt a lot, so I think we're all motivated to make if farther than we did in soccer," Dugal said.

"Definitely motivates me a lot to win, especially against teams we lost to," Thibeault said.

And to get that sweet, sweet revenge, Coach Gendreau is hammering home one aspect of their game.

"Defense. I mean we, work on defense every day, it's going to have to be our defense we could probably play the best defense every day and I still wouldn't be satisfied," coach Gendreau said.

Tale as old as time: Defense wins championships and that's the end goal for the Owls.