You’ve seen it a million times: the team, huddled in a circle around the coach, hands on hips or knees, gazes to the floor, ears tuned to the coach. On Thursday, during Shipley women’s varsity basketball practice, coach Sean Costello lays it on the line, “Listen,” he says with a calm intensity, “we haven’t been getting the stuff in the Friends League that will keep us sharp. We have to find that in the practices. We’re going to get up and down the court a little bit more now. We need the fitness.”

With an explosion of power, beauty, and grace, the players fan out onto the court into one of the many drills that will test their skill and endurance, and prepare them to compete against teams far outside their own school league.

The eleven-man break, a tempest of interceptions, rebounds, passing, and running, prepares the girls for easy transition baskets on fast breaks. Fouls and fitness, a brutal cocktail of pressured foul shots interspersed with suicide sprints, helps the girls develop the presence of mind and physical control to take advantage of free throws when they are winded. All this is part of a greater strategy: outrun the opponent.

“I like a fast-paced game,” says Tamesha Alexander. “I like to go up and down the floor a lot and take easy baskets off of turnovers or steals. Playing slow is boring.” Coach Costello agrees. “There are a lot of teams in the area that may walk the ball up the floor and let the clock run. We try to pressure the ball. We like to speed up the game. Strategically it’s smart for teams to try to slow games down against us. For us, it’s smart for us to speed them up.”

All this makes for mighty exciting basketball.

So far this year, the girls have gone 8-0 in the Friends Schools League, but they have their eyes on a bigger prize. Last year’s team of 2011-12 won the Independent State Basketball Tournament. These girls want to do it again.

Having coached girls now for the past seven years, Costello has developed a style that works for him. “I’m laid back but I am also firm,” he says. “I give them room to grow but also expect a lot from them. There are a lot of coaches who like to micromanage on the court. That’s not me. I figure, it’s about preparation. That’s what the practices are for. Once the girls are in the games, I let them call the plays.”

The team is young, having no seniors, but they work together, eat together and play together. Winter, spring, summer, and fall. “When I first started, there were a couple of girls who played year round, but now the majority of the varsity team plays year round. They’re just devoted to the game,” says Costello.

And he could not be more delighted with the team. “We’re at a point in the program where we’re very competitive, and where the girls are very serious about basketball. When I started, we had to bring up eighth graders to even have a team. Now, some girls have Division I collegiate prospects. We’re entering a different era as far as Shipley basketball goes.”