GRAY — Upon returning to practice Monday after a holiday break, talk was about the future and not the past.

The Gray-New Gloucester girls’ basketball team went into the break undefeated and second in Western B. It’s been an impressive start for the Patriots, especially considering the team is young.

“It definitely has given us confidence,” senior forward Maria Valente said. “We did need a little more of that. That’s given us a little boost, knowing that we can do it.”

Despite the positive reinforcement that winning brings, the 6-0 Patriots aren’t rest on their laurels. There’s a whole other part of the season to come and the tournament to follow.

“We don’t want to put too much into these games this early because the other teams are not,”  Gray-NG coach Mike Andreasen said. “York and Greely, they’re not hanging their heads about losing one game early. They’re more focused on the games down the stretch. We have to do the same thing.”

The Patriots start is a bit of a surprise. Andreasen’s team had a number of returning players back with experience. The rest of the Western Maine Conference is younger than in recent years with many of the top teams graduating significant talent. Still, the Patriots are young. Four of the top six players are just sophomores. So to start undefeated and beat teams like Lake Region, York and Greely during that stretch, is a wonderful accomplishment.

“I think a lot of people are hesitant to believe that we’re fairly good” Andreasen said. “We are fairly good. We’re a good young club. We’re not double digits better than those teams. If you ask me who the favorites are in Class B right now, I’d say Greely and York. I would say that even though we’ve beaten both of those. When they get to Portland, they’ve been there before. They’ve been in those situations.”

The Patriots went 11-7 last year before losing in the Western B quarterfinals to Wells. It was the first time in years that Gray-NG had gone that far.

Gray-NG only has two veteran seniors back from that team — Valente and forward Zoe Adams. The rest of the returnees — Alicia Dumont, Skye Conley, Grace Kariotis and Isabelle DeTroy — were freshmen last year.

“I came into it thinking that I play the game because I love it,” Adams said of her expectations. “That’s why we all play. I think it just all came together. We’re all family and we all work together on and off the court.”

After the rare win over York earlier this month, the school was excited about the team’s victory but the players just took it in stride.

“We just play as hard as we can,” Valente said. “The statistics aren’t a big thing for us. It’s all about working as a team. Everything is about the team.”

A prime example is when the JV team was short on players, the coaching staff turned to some of the lesser-experienced seniors to help out. Though coaches typically avoid putting seniors on the JV squad, Sara Calder and Crystal MacLean volunteered and played on the JV team.

“We all play because we love it,” Adams said.

The Patriots opened the season with a 59-47 win at Greely and then added wins over Fryeburg, Cape Elizabeth, York and Wells. They finished the break with a narrow 47-46 victory at Lake Region. Andreasen has had his team playing some of the best Class A teams in the state during the summer and preseason. The Patriots took their lumps in some games but did well in others. It has helped season this evolving group.

“I think we just work really well together,” Adams said. “There’s like five of us that have played together since we were young. The sophomore group has played together since they were young. It’s all just meshed really well.”

The Patriots have an established conference all-star in Valente. She’s the team’s returning scorer and leader and one of the top players in the league. The team works well around her.

“I think most of it has to do with our team chemistry and how we interact,” Valente said. “We work really well together on and off the court.”

The emergence of the sophomores has been a significant factor as well. They all showed great promise last year and have stepped up their games with greater roles this winter.

“They played behind some seniors,” Andreasen said of last year. “Those seniors were experienced kids. They were great backups. Skye Conley was a great backup to Steph Greaton and Alicia Dumont to Julia Martel, but they still needed a year of interning.”

It’s all part of a bigger picture that Andreasen wants to see in the program. He wants the program to “Climb the elevator.” The team has been working on the lower floors of Western B but are moving on up.

“The big picture is that we don’t want to just be good this year,” Andreasen said. “Our goal is to be good every year. We look at three teams that we’re chasing – Lake Region, Greely and York. Those three teams every year are almost always there at the end.”

It’s an accomplishment for the Patriots to have beaten those three already this year. Andreasen had never beaten York or Lake Region. Gray-New Gloucester plays Lake Region next week and could likely see any combination of those three in the tournament.

“Can we beat them in February?” said Andreasen, who said Spruce Mountain will be another team to watch in Western B. “Winning games now when teams are still forming, for the most part, it’s a nice start, but I worry that it’s fool’s gold. When the (upcoming) teams might not have the same pedigree as these teams, I worry about us not going in as intense.”

Last year, the Patriots were 3-3 at the break. That was good for the club, especially with its challenging schedule, but Gray-NG lost some games later in the season that should have been won.

“It’s been nice for our confidence,” Andreasen said. “It’s still early. It’s like an NFL team starting 3-0. They’re not talking about winning the Super Bowl. We’ve got to make sure that we can beat teams who on paper we’re supposed to beat.”

Andreasen says the team’s mantra this year is to take it one step at a time. While the Patriots are trying to build for the future, they’re focusing on the tasks close at hand.When asked about the second half of the season, they simply state they’re only thinking about Yarmouth – the team the Patriots play Saturday.

“We just take it game-by-game, practice by practice” Valente said.. “We work hard against each other and whatever happens happens.”

kmills@sunjournal.com