With a number of multi-sport athletes on the roster and just three varsity players returning from last season’s squad, it took some time for the Blessed Trinity Lady Titans to gain traction on the hard-court.

But after breaking for the holidays with a 4-7 record, Blessed Trinity kicked off the New Year with wins in five of their next six games. Now just weeks away from tournament play, head coach Tamara Chavis is pleased with the direction her team is trending.

“I think we are just coming together as a team, understanding each other and [gaining] the kind of chemistry that teams have when they play with each other all year round,” said Chavis, now in her seventh year at the end of the Lady Titans’ bench. “We don’t have that benefit as I have multiple sport athletes, so we are playing catch-up a lot of the time.

“But we are finding ourselves now.”

After winning eight games a year ago and carrying just three seniors on the roster, Chavis said she expected some growing pains as the 2012-2013 squad got acclimated to varsity basketball early in the season — against a non-region schedule littered with bigger, more experience squads.

The Lady Titans suffered losses to River Ridge, Etowah, Woodstock, Riverwood and Archer (all AAAAA or AAAAAA schools) in the season’s first two weeks — games that Chavis said helped them develop in the long run.

“I love playing bigger schools…especially early so that it’s a reality check of where we really are and how much work we really have to do by the end of the season,” said the Blessed Trinity coach. “When we got to our region…it made us better.”

Led by the play of Kourtney Keegan (10.1 points, 7.6 rebounds per game) and Megan Casey (9.9 points and 7.2 rebounds) in the post, the Lady Titans are 5-5 in 6AAA play, placing them in fourth place in the region and giving them the inside track at one of four state playoff spots come February — a place BT hasn’t reached in three years.

“[The girls have] said they wanted to go to state but that’s as far as I let them get. We need to stay focused on the little things like fundamentals, keep gelling as a team and keep learning from each game to get better.”