By Jeff Appelblatt
Though the summer basketball season has been over for about two weeks and the regular season doesn’t start until the winter, Woodbridge High School coach Rob Timinski is excited to keep his girls working hard in order to be ready for next season.
“We’ve had a great summer so far,” the coach, entering into his fourth year leading the Woodbridge squad, said. “I’ve been very pleased with the effort.”
And it’s not only the 10 games his team played in the Middlesex County High School Girls Summer Basketball League that has Timinski hyped as he looks forward. Between the workouts, scrimmages and eagerness to improve, Timinski anticipates an improvement on last year’s 11-13 record and on the sub-.500 summer campaign.
Also for the Barrons, it’s never about any one athlete.
“We need everyone to step up this year,” Timinski said. “The strength of our team is playing together as a team.”
Of course, even if no individual could carry the team, the coach knows he has some players his club would struggle without, starting with Brooke Timinski and Jordan Vazquez. Vazquez sat out the 2015-16 season after suffering an injury in the preseason, which also forced the multi-sport student-athlete to sit out the softball season. Brooke Timinski, meanwhile, accepted the pressure in the backcourt; she led the Barrons with about 10 points per game, which was accompanied by three assists per outing. Then a sophomore, Timinski surged late last spring, playing a vital role when Woodbridge won six of its final seven games.
Having both Timinski and Vazquez in the backcourt is something Woodbridge’s coach is hoping for, especially after the departure of one of the team’s best frontcourt assets. Comfort Akinbo is entering into her first year of playing college basketball at the University of New Haven.
“[Akinbo] will be tough to replace,” coach Timinski said thinking about last year’s leader on the defensive end (2.7 blocks per game) and one of the team’s best rebounders (6.1 per game). “But after last year, Brooke [Timinski] will always be a focal point. If Jordan Vazquez is healthy, and with the current players we have that got experience last year, I think we have a chance to compete.”
No matter how the next few months play out and whether he is leading the workouts, coach Timinski is confident the members of his team will make sure to work hard in preparing for the winter.
