Success on the hardwood for the Auburn Mountainview girls basketball team this season boils down to one simple task – gaining experience.

This year the Lions come into the season with a roster packed with talent, but shy on experience.

“We’re young,” coach Chris Carr said. “We only have one kid right now with any significant varsity minutes from last year.”

Currently, the team’s only experienced varsity player on the court is 6-foot-1 post Stephanie Smolinski, who led the South Puget Sound League 3A in rebounding and blocked shots and was an all-league honorable-mention performer as a sophomore last year.

However, help is on the horizon for the Lions in the form of junior Angel Pele, a second-team All-SPSL 3A selection last season.

Last season, Pele suffered an ACL injury that kept her out of spring and summer ball.

Without her scoring ability, the Lions have struggled this season to put the ball in the basket, compiling a 2-2 SPSL 3A record, 4-2 overall.

“Obviously, not having her there hurts us,” Carr said. “She’s a great player and teammate, just an all-around good kid. It’s really hard to see her not playing.

“The last half of last year she was really coming on,” Carr said. “Talking to some of the other coaches, they said she was the one they would plan for when they played us. She’s a great shooter and got better defensively last year. She’s a good post player and gives a lot of things that we don’t have right now. The biggest is her ability to put the ball in the basket.”

As hard as her absence on the court has been for her team, Pele said riding the pine and not being able to contribute have been challenges for her.

“At first it was kind of hard to sit on the bench,” she said. “Then I kind of got used to it, because I did it all during spring and summer. Then it was hard when this season started, because the games mattered. It was really hard when we lost two in a row.

“I’m feeling like I’m one of the missing pieces that we need.”

But all that ends on Jan. 2 when the Lions travel to Linden for a tournament, and Pele returns to the court.

“I’m so ecstatic,” Pele said. “I’m so excited

“It’s going to be a really big boost just having another offensive player out there,” Smolinski said.

Now, all that’s left is for the other members of the team to gain the confidence and experience to take them to the next level.

“We have a freshman point guard (Shelly Brown) and with that, comes some growing pains,” Carr said. “She’s a talented kid, and we put a lot on her shoulders. Right now she’s about where she should be. We see flashes of brilliance and other times, she plays like a freshman.”

In addition to Brown, the team will look to senior guard Tasha Al-Nakib, and transfer students Lizzy Harrison, from Tahoma, and Ida Hunters, a German exchange student, to garner the on-court time needed to contribute to the team.

“I really think it’s about how we progress,” Carr said. “I keep telling the team it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. One of the most important things, especially with a young team, is that we need to get better every game. It’s hard because we obviously want to win every game. But just getting better every game is the ultimate goal.”

Luckily, Carr said this year’s squad is one of the most coachable he’s had in his four years at Auburn Mountainview.

“The biggest thing is just to get everybody to accept their role on this team and build off of that,” Carr said. “It’s just a matter of communicating with them.

“It’s interesting because it’s in their hands at this point on how quickly they want to progress,” he contined. “We can’t use the excuse that we’re young forever. They need to get to the point were we’re an experienced team. And if they take that path at the end of the year, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be in state.”

According to Pele and Smolinski, the goal of reaching state is attainable.

“I feel like we’re a much better team with much more team chemistry,” Pele said. “We just want to make it to state and lead in all categories of defense and do the little things that we need to win.”

“I feel we’re better this year. We play better together than we did last year,” Smolinski said. “It’s just working out the little challenges. I feel we’ve got the potential to go far. I do expect us to go to state and place. And we all have the same expectations and we’re working toward that.”