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POLAND — Finally, this season isn’t about rebuilding for the Poland girls basketball team.

The Knights are coming off of a 13-6 season and a preliminary playoff win. They improved to 2-0 this season with a 67-41 win over St. Dom’s on Tuesday.

“We had three or four bad seasons before I even got here,” Poland fifth-year coach Jake Webb said. “Three or four bad seasons in a row, and it was time to rebuild the program. We’ve had a lot of bad energy for a while, but leaders on last year’s team did a great job of changing the culture with us as a group.”

After going 0-18 in 2022, the Knights dropped from Class B to C to rebuild the program. After last year’s success, they’re aiming for more in 2024-25. Then they plan to return to Class B South along with other schools their size.

“This year, (we’re playing) mostly a B schedule, anyway,” Webb said.

Senior Ruby Taylor led Poland on Tuesday with 11 points. A pair of sophomores were the Knights’ next highest scorers, Charlotte Grenier finished with 10 and Phoebe Paradis had eight.

Grenier was part of Poland’s rotation last year, and Paradis spent the season swinging between the varsity and JV teams.

“Last year really helped me develop,” Paradis said, “and I think that me and all of the other underclassmen have just stepped into the role and taken on the knowledge that it’s going to be difficult and it’s going to be different than what it was last year,” Paradis said. “For the eighth graders that moved up to freshmen and the sophomores that played some JV and some varsity, I think we all just worked really well I think we did a really good job taking that responsibility and working together as a team.”

Grenier and Paradis are two of eight underclassmen on Poland’s 13-player roster this season.

“We’re very young,” Webb said. “We have one senior that’s playing right now, three seniors on the roster, so let’s just get better every day. We’re one junior and the rest are freshman (and) sophomores. So, we’re just trying to get better work hard work our way through it.”

Though young, the Knights also are deep. All nine players who clocked major minutes Tuesday contributed points, and team’s three freshmen play a lot of minutes.

“I’ve got four fantastic coaches on the bench … it’s fantastic,” Webb said. “You can’t ask for more than this. This group, we’ve got 13 young women who want to learn every day and come to practice to learn.”

Randy Parenteau, first-year coach of the Class D Saints, can relate to coaching a young roster, having only eight players, two of whom are in eighth grade.

“We’ve got heart,” Parenteau said. “We were definitely outsized and out-manned because we are a small team and stuff like that, but we showed a lot of heart and hustle tonight. We’re very young team; I’ve got two eighth graders, four sophomores and two seniors, so we’re a young team, and we’re learning — it’s a process.”

St. Dom’s senior Charli Apodaca scored a game-high 16 points on Tuesday, 14 of which came in the second half.

“Charli’s great, she’s my captain, my senior (and) my leader,” Parenteau said. “Charli’s a good basketball player — she hustles, she wants to win, she wants to play hard.”