Northwestern Lehigh girls basketball coach Chris Deutsch isn’t the type to look to put a good spin on what he thinks of his team.

He’s always positive about his players, but when things aren’t quite where they need to be, he’s not going to look the other way and try to make it all look shiny and good.

Through a couple of scrimmages against tough teams like Easton, Nazareth, Pottsgrove and Wilson, Deutsch has seen some things that need to be fixed. And with the season opening up Friday night against Whitehall, there isn’t much time.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Deutsch with just a hint of a chuckle. “We’ll get there, but it’s going to take some time. The girls are working and some of them are coming from fall programs that had a lot of success with all of the championships that those teams won, so they have that experience to draw from. It’s just taking time adjusting to new personnel and it’s going to take time, but I’m encouraged by how they’re working.”

The team’s two top scorers from last season are gone. Sage Christopher graduated and Emily Sekerak transferred to Bethlehem Catholic. The two players combined to average just over 21 points per game last season and provided some size down low for Northwestern. Maggie Motolese, who came off the bench last season, also graduated, leaving Deutsch with some holes to fill on this year’s team.

The solution is for players who performed well in lesser roles to step into bigger assignments and for this year’s seniors to provide leadership along the way.

The Sevrain family has kept Deutsch’s teams well stocked with players. Gabby Sevrain is entering her sophomore season at Dickinson College and Sydney Sevrain averaged just over 10 points per game as a junior last season with the Lady Tigers. This season, Paige Sevrain joins the team as a freshman and Deutsch is high on the latest addition to his team from the Sevrain family.

“I think we’re going to have a freshman starter in Paige Sevrain at center,” he said. “She’s one that we’ll be counting on for sure. We have a good mix of some freshmen, some seniors, juniors and sophomores. Of our 16 kids on the JV/Varsity roster, three are seniors so we have 13 who are juniors or less.”

As the middle sister, Sydney Sevrain has gotten to play high school basketball with both of her sisters and is looking forward to being the older sibling on the court this time around.

“It’s great to be playing with my little sister. I got to play with my older sister and now I get to play with my younger sister,” said Sydney Sevrain, who said that she learned a few things from how her older sister dealt with her as a young player. She also noted that she’ll have to adopt some of those things to adjust to her younger sibling. “Paige is very different from Gabby and I’m very different from both of them, so it’s different, but yet still along the same lines.”

In addition to Sevrain, Deutsch has Mackenzie Hess and Gabriella Giese as seniors on this year’s roster. Hess was a member of the soccer team that won gold medals in districts and then went as far as the quarterfinals in states, and is one of several players who played on winning teams during the fall season. The experience of being part of a winning team and gaining postseason experience could be an intangible for a young team.

“We have some youth there and for some of them, this is their first year getting some varsity time or getting more time than they’ve gotten in the past,” said Deutsch. “That experience of playing in that type of environment is a bonus, absolutely. I’m excited about it because I’m sure they all took a lot from that experience.”

The clock is ticking toward the season opener and while Deutsch feels just a slight bit of nerves about how his team will perform, Sydney Sevrain is showing the same cool composure that she shows on the court as she enters her senior season.

“There are always things to work on,” said Sevrain. “But I think we all get along really well and we’re all working toward getting better.”