It wasn’t the outcome first-year Cary girls’ basketball coach Donald Kent hoped for, otherwise the Imps’ first game of the season went pretty much as expected. In a sloppy match that featured 22 Sanderson turnovers and 26 Cary giveaways, the Spartans toughed it out for a 55-44 win on Nov. 14.

“I thought we’d do a little better than we did, but the things that I saw are correctable,” Kent said. “There was no problem with effort. They played hard. They are just not doing things correctly yet because we’ve had nine practices. I’m not the least bit disappointed. Disappointed that we lost, yes, but not disappointed in our effort.”

It’s that effort that Bionca Bond said will be the team’s strength this year. Bond, who led Cary with 16 points against Sanderson, is the only senior on the young team and she is expected to shoulder much of the leadership responsibility. She and junior Kelsey Campbell are the only returning varsity players on a team that lost in the first round of the state playoffs last year.

Despite the inexperience of the team, Kent said the seven freshmen and sophomores are key to the Imps’ season.

“I’ve already told them our success depends on our bench players getting better — that’s where our success is,” Kent said. “I think our five starters are pretty solid. But our young girls on the bench, their improvement is gonna determine how well we can do.”

The Cary bench contributed zero points against Sanderson.

The Spartans led by as many as 10 in the first half, but Cary fought back to get within one, 37-36, in the third quarter. Cary couldn’t take the lead, however, and Sanderson closed out the game on a 15-8 run.

Brittany Adams scored a game-high 20 points for the Spartans, and she went 13-for-15 from the free-throw line.

“It’s always good to get that first one in,” Sanderson coach Marcus Davis said. “The first one is always the hardest one. We’ll take it in and start working harder every day.”

Kent also expects his team to work harder now that it has a game under its belt. He said the team has to get into better shape to run a full-court press and must handle the ball better than it did against Sanderson.

“I think we did good on fast-break organization — we got back really well but we failed to carry out our offense,” Bond said. “I guess we just got a little scrambled and discombobulated with the defense. We’re not used to someone always being in our face. It was some first-game jitters. We’ve only been playing together for like a week and a half.”

Not only are the players trying to get to know each other but they are also getting to know their new coach. Kent, a 1977 graduate of Cary High, was the Imps JV boy’s basketball coach last year and hasn’t coached varsity girls’ basketball since leaving East Wake three years ago.

“He really knows what he’s talking about,” Bond said. “He listens and tries to understand where we’re coming from. I think he’s a very good coach, one of the best I’ve had.”