By STEVE HEMMELGARN shemmelgarn@newsandsentinel.com 

PARKERSBURG - Optimism sometimes can be either heightened or deflated by what happens in preseason practice.

But just two days into practice sessions for West Virginia high school girls basketball teams, all three head coaches of the Parkersburg schools are more than pleased with their respective teams' drive and intensity so far.

At Parkersburg South, where Scott Stephens' only non-state tournament team in his five seasons including two Class AAA state championships at the Patriot helm was last year - losing to Beckley in the regional - his 2009-10 squad is minus only point guard Danielle Floyd and 3-point threat Katelyn Porter from last season.

But Stephens is blessed this season with eight seniors - the most he's ever had - including returning starters Asia Greenleaf, Mary Seagraves and Kelsi Halbert along with Jessie Moore, Sammy Hicks and Kristiana Hunt. 'So we've got a pretty good core group of kids returning,' said Stephens Tuesday.

Monday's opening practice was, Stephens said, 'a little sloppy. We're working mostly on conditioning and fundamentals this week, but it was a good practice.'

Stephens has 22 girls out for the varsity and another 14 on the freshman team to total 36, 'the best number we've had for a couple years,' he said. 'It's defense this week, offense next week and then the third week, we'll try to put the two together before a couple scrimmages to get ready to start in for real Dec. 1.'

Parkersburg Catholic's Marty Vierheller too knows he 'has a good nucleus coming back. So I'm excited about this season and so are the girls. We've had two excellent day of practice, with a lot of enthusiasm and energy, Plus, our numbers are back up' to 16 this season with five sophomores and six freshmen coupled with four seniors and a junior. 'That'll mean a lot more competition on this team for spots, which I think will make all of our players better.'

Through his first three seasons at PCHS, Vierheller has taken the Crusaderettes to the Class A state tournament every year, losing in the finals in his first try. Minus only one starter this season in Kyle Pugh, Catholic returns regulars Maggie Boelter, Courtney Ferguson, Katlyn Richards and Liz Ruscitto for last year. 'But I think we're going to be deep enough where we can use a lot of personnel,' said Vierheller.

He precisely 'maps out' his team's plan for the month-long preseason practices, including 'having a couple of scrimmages actually pretty early.'

And Vierheller wants 'to make sure that we don't teach too fast, that we thoroughly teach something and make sure the players learn it before proceeding on to something else. We don't rush things.'

'Emphasis is on fundamentals early,' said Vierheller, in the preseason drills and, of course, defense is always stressed to the hilt as well at Catholic.

For Kenny DeMoss in his third season at Parkersburg High School, 'I like what I've seen for far from the girls in practice. I think we've made steps up the ladder every year.'

Without only Madison and Jenna Pavan, Randi Brundige and Sarah Thompson from last season, DeMoss also believes he has 'a good nucleus back for this year, 'which puts us a lot further ahead of where I thought we'd be at this point.' In fact, he added, Monday's opening practice was 'the best one we've ever had in three years here.'

Back for DeMoss' Big Reds are starters Tiffany Mahoney, Christine Jacobs and Tori Wilson plus Emma Romanowski returns after a year off.

DeMoss, whose team also opens Dec. 1, plans out his preseason practices week by week, similar to both Stephens and Vierheller. 'We put in bits and pieces of what we do early on, then try to just make it better,' explained the optimistic DeMoss.

'We have high hopes,' he said, 'We know the kind of talent we have out there, we know we're capable of winning, but our foundation is really our defense. It's improved so much in the three years we've been here.'