LEADING ROLE: Princeton Day School girls’ hockey player Ashley Cavuto races up the ice in a game last winter. PDS is looking to junior star Cavuto to provide leadership and production for a squad welcoming a number of new faces. The Panthers team was slated to open its 2015-16 season by playing at Wyoming Seminary (Pa. ) on December 1 before hosting Portledge School (N.Y. ) on December 3 and Summit High on December 7. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

As preseason practice began for the Princeton Day School girls’ ice hockey team last month, head coach Lorna Cook may have felt like she needed a program to identify her players.

There were only five returners among the 19 players who hit the ice for the Panthers with eight freshmen, four sophomore newcomers, and two new juniors.

Cook has enjoyed welcoming her new charges to the program. “It has been a lot of fun; it has been a different approach for me as far as making sure that a lot of the new players are able to get their fundamentals and learn the game a little better,” said Cook, who guided the Panthers to a 9-12-2 record last winter and the ‘A’ bracket at the WIHLMA (Women’s Interscholastic Hockey League of the Mid-Atlantic) tournament.

“The advantage of it with more skaters is bringing a freshness to the team; it has been really great. I think that it is coming along, we are just trying to create a solid foundation right now. What we typically do in practice is start out together with drills and then we split and do skill stuff and then come back together again.”

The return of highly skilled junior star goalie Annika Asplundh gives the PDS defense a solid foundation.

“Annika looks great; she keeps getting better each year she comes to the team,” said Cook, whose team was slated to open its 2015-16 season by playing at Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) on December 1 before hosting Portledge School (N.Y. ) on December 3 and Summit High on December 7.

“She is stronger. We will count on her to keep us in a lot of games and she just gives confidence to everybody. We have got some new defensemen this year and she is really helping them out.”

Asplundh is also helping out freshman backup Maddy Birch. “They seem to be getting along really well and we are letting them have their goalie thing, making sure that they are supporting each other,” said Cook.

“Maddy looks good; she has got good size. She is very athletic and has excelled at other sports for a while. Now she is playing some travel hockey as well which has made a big difference.”

One of the squad’s top athletes is junior defenseman Kristi Serafin. “The juniors are providing leadership and we are going to count on her to lead the defense,” said Cook. “She is one of our top players.”

The corps of defensemen includes three promising newcomers in freshmen Madison McCaw, Val Radvany, and Sasha Sindhwani.

“We have had three standout athletes from the fall season who also have hockey experience,” said Cook, noting that McCaw starred in soccer while Radvany and Sindhwani are field hockey standouts.

“The best thing about them is their aggressiveness, they are not shy. They were blocking shots in our scrimmages, they were rushing the puck, they were pinching on the blue line. The big thing for us is that we are trying to make sure that they are being decisive. We want to see them try to make a play and if they get beat because they were being too aggressive, we will talk to them afterward.”

At forward, the Panthers will look to a pair of juniors, Ashley Cavuto and Kiely French, along with sophomore Emma Latham to lead the way.

“We have a pretty good forward core, Ashley and Kiely are the two junior returners,” said Cook.

That core has been augmented by a promising group of newcomers in sophomore Sam Dwyer, freshman Julie Patterson, sophomore Madison Mundenar, sophomore Palmer White, junior Allison Klei, and junior Julie David along with freshmen Gwen Allen, Bryn Aprill, and Flynn Gorman.

“We have some really good freshmen and sophomores who have come in,” said Cook.

“Sam Dwyer is going to be a center for us, she is a really smart player. The big thing with her is getting her to find that balance between being smart but also getting her legs moving and creating opportunities. She is going to be good at center and both Julies (David and Patterson) will play on the wing.”

In Cook’s view, the team needs to build a good chemistry as it looks to get everyone on the same page.

“Really the focus for us has been on the team as a whole, we don’t have any seniors this year so we have really been relying on our juniors to provide that leadership,” said Cook, whose four returning juniors are Asplundh, Serafin, Cavuto, and French with newcomers Klei and David.

“They have done a really good job. What we are doing right now is making sure that they are doing everything they can to have a cohesiveness with the group. We want to make sure that everybody stays together, plays together, and plays for each other. That is what we think we have gotten so far with these new players, they are very vocal on the bench and during practice helping each other. We want to see that continue and have even more of that.”

On the ice, Cook is looking for her players to focus on the basics. “Being able to execute when we need to is a key,” said Cook. “Our power play has looked really good so far, there is a lot of potential there. We need people to finish opportunities when we get them. We have been working on playing smart defensively as far as shifting pucks and moving feet, that has been an emphasis.”