After a successful summer campaign, Northampton's boys' basketball team is already looking forward to the winter season.

Entering his second season, head coach Coy Stampone is more comfortable and relaxed about his team's chances. He believes the continuing development of team chemistry and maturation on and off the court will be the key to lifting the K-Kids to another level.

"We really didn't look at the wins and losses during the summer league, but we looked at how we played," said Stampone, whose club went 3-19 in his inaugural season. "We played well in both the Stellar Tournament and at Sportsfest.

"But we were able to have a full summer season with workouts, camps, leagues, and tournaments. It will be definitely helping us this coming season."

Stampone noted that his club won both games at both the Stellar Tournament and Sportsfest. He was also impressed with his team's showing at the DeSales ' team camp.

"We had two wins at Stellar and we down to CB (Central Bucks) East by six (points) with 10 minutes to go. We also had a good showing at Sportsfest, but we didn't advance to the sweet 16 round. We lost to Constitution, a state championship team from Philly, and the losing margin was too big to allow us to advance to the next round."

Stampone credited the play of senior Piefka Stonewall, who had a team-high 26 points in a loss to Dieruff at the Stellar Tournament, and junior A.Q. McNeil, who made the most of his 6-foot-5 frame.

"Piefka (Stonewall) played very well during the summer," said Stampone. "He is starting to take his game to the next level. (McNeil) played on the JV team last winter and was impressive in every single game. He (McNeil) is a big kid and gives us another body down low."

The lone drawback for Stampone can be his team's depth in his upperclassmen, ironically a luxury most programs would welcome. However, Stampone is looking to develop his younger players, as he will begin this season with eight seniors and four juniors. In his first season, Stampone's program graduated seven seniors.

"We want to get to the point where we can develop our younger players," said Stampone. "We'll have a big senior class this winter and a handful of juniors. We do have some sophomores who could probably step in, but we need to have more younger players be ray to contribute. We want to be able to have younger kids to be able to help us.

"It was a good sign that our JVs and freshmen played well during the summer."

Yet, Stampone and school officials know his program won't reach another level overnight.

"I recently met with the school administration and we discussed how this will take time," said Stampone. "We were able to set up some new things the program didn't have the past few years. We were happy the way we played during the summer and we came together as a team and program.

"We were able to compete with some of the better programs around. We developed as a team in several ways. We left the offseason program with good knowledge about what we need to do for the regular season."