The Cherryland Conference will have only three teams competing in girls' basketball this year, meaning there’s a 66 percent chance the league title will go to a Leelanau school.

St. Mary and Northport from Leelanau, will battle with Traverse City Christian for the title that was shared by three teams last year.

St. Mary tied for the conference championship last fall with Leland, which is now playing in the Northwest Conference, and Traverse City Christian. Christian then eliminated the Eagles from the Class D District playoffs last year, leaving St. Mary at 9-12 overall 6-2 in the conference.

Now in her third season as head coach, Paula Korson is optimistic about the Eagles’ chances. “We have 12 girls out for varsity and 12 for the junior varsity. We have fantastic numbers, lots of participation,” she said.

St. Mary’s starting lineup will be all seniors: Alyssa Korson, Susan Herman, Sarah Schaub, Breanna Korson and Anne Kuznicki. Kathryn Miller and Kayla Kermode round out the list of seniors playing on the varsity this year.

“We have a fabulous starting lineup. All seniors, all with lots of experience, skill and speed,” Coach Korson said. “Last year we had one senior on the team. This year we’re going to pick up where we left off,” she said. All of the seniors are team captains.

The good news for St. Mary and Northport is that T-C Christian graduated several seniors last year. The bad news: Christian still has plenty of height and experience returning for the new season. “Christian still has plenty of talented players and they will be a formidable foe,” Korson said.

The biggest change all girls’ basketball teams have had to face was moving from a fall sport to a winter sport. Korson said she thinks the change is a positive.

“The girls haven’t played as a team since last November, but the anticipation is much higher because they are already in school,” she said. “Starting practice in August was always a challenge, getting the girls to start thinking about basketball while summer is in full swing was always kind of hard,” Korson said.

For Northport, assistant coach Gary Longcore has moved into the head coach position. Dan Stowe, who had been coaching the Wildcat girls for the last four years, is the assistant principal at Northport in addition to his full-time teaching position.

“I have nothing but respect for all the hard work Dan did for this program. He faced the same issues I am as far as participation numbers and he reinforced the basics and team unity the entire time,” Longcore said.

Northport had eight players out for the varsity and eight for the JV. Returning from last year’s team are seniors Octavia Buss and Betsy Shiner and juniors Kristina Leabo and Shauna Sitarek. Rounding out the roster are freshmen Emily Stowe and Carolyn Gorenflo and seniors Savannah Sams and Amanda Luna.

With a entire student population hovering around 150, Longcore said having enough students come out for the team is a challenge Northport faces each year. “We had a scrimmage tonight (Monday) at Forest Area. We had six girls who could be there,” he said.

Longcore said the team has shown improvement with each practice. “The girls are focused, they’re enthusiastic, I see improvement every time they’re on the floor,” he said.

Longcore said while he hopes the Wildcats can work their way into conference title consideration, the battle for first probably goes to St. Mary and T-C Christian. “St. Mary has everyone back. They’re quick and experienced. Christian lost a lot of their scorers, but they have the tallest girls in our conference,” he said.

Northport opens the season on Nov. 29 at the Alba Tournament. St. Mary will play at Buckley on Tuesday.