Coach: Gillian d’Hondt (First year)

Last season: Second in KingCo, lost in regional tournament.

Strengths: Depth, experience. Seven of Mercer Island’s 12 players are returning from last year.

Needs to improve: The Islanders are taking on new offensive and defensive schemes, playing a triangle offense and an “all-out deny” pressure defense.

“It’s more of a Metro style, much more pressure,” d’Hondt said of the defense. “It leaves us a little vulnerable at times, obviously because we’re overplaying. But with communication and help-side [defense], it should be solid.”

“It’s a hard offense to run, but once people know what they’re doing, I think they’ll pick it up really well,” senior Jess Blakeslee said.

“It’s definitely a style of basketball where you have to know how your teammates play and be able to read off of them,” senior Taylor Krause added.

“It takes a lot of chemistry,” d’Hondt said. “It’s going to take a lot of pressure off of our key players because everyone is a threat, and so [defenses] are going to have to respect each player.”

Goals: “We want to make it the furthest at state that we’ve ever made it before. State is always our goal,” Blakeslee said.

“We definitely think it’s a reasonable goal. We have pretty much the same team coming back this year, we’ve only lost a few players,” Krause said.

Captains: Jess Blakeslee, Taylor Krause, Anna Luce.

Other key athletes: Kailee Yan, Claire Mansfield, Josie Blakeslee, Jessica Stenberg.

Games to watch: Juanita, Dec. 16, Jan. 22; Bellevue, Jan. 13, Feb. 5.