LEBANON — Emily Kehoe won’t lack for help this winter. The new Lebanon High girls basketball coach has many acquaintances assisting during the preseason, from current and former peers to ex-Raiders on break from school.
Kehoe’s dad, meanwhile, is keeping his distance.
A former Raider standout herself, Kehoe has officially stepped into the shoes Tim Kehoe used to wear on the Lebanon sidelines. The elder Kehoe called a pause to coaching in April after 29 seasons, a 545-108 record at Lebanon and a COVID-influenced share of last winter’s NHIAA Division II championship.
The younger Kehoe, who also teaches health at her alma mater, always has her father as a sounding board should she require one. She admitted this week that he’s doing well to let her negotiate her own way around her first varsity coaching job.
“He’s just going stay home,” Emily Kehoe said. “I’m a young female coach, and sometimes there are respect issues that come up with that. My girls and I have never had any issues; they’ve always respected me since I took the job. But he’s been around a long time, so he doesn’t want to go to games and wants them to understand it’s my program now.”
The Raiders’ cupboard is hardly bare, but some important ingredients did exit once the COVID-19 pandemic ended Lebanon’s season just before a scheduled state final date with Spaulding in March.
Kehoe no longer has Rebecca Wright in a starring role. Wright graduated in June as Ms. New Hampshire basketball and a three-time D-II player of the year, bound for the Southern New Hampshire University women’s program. SNHU’s conference, the Northeast-10, voted to cancel winter sports on Tuesday; Kehoe has asked Wright and fellow June graduate Megan Gradijan — whose gap-year travel plans fell to the pandemic as well — to pop in at occasional workouts for their insight.
Vinny Guerin and Jeff Sowa, Kehoe’s fiancé, helped oversee Thursday’s practice at Lang Metcalf Gym. Sowa and Heather King should be on Kehoe’s bench when the season starts next month.
Tim Kehoe, meanwhile, said hello to his daughter before things started, patting her on the shoulder before leaving for the day.
“It’s been really awesome,” senior captain Sally Rainey said. “We had Emily this summer for the few practices that we were able to have, and it was a much more seamless transition that I thought it was going to be. Mr. Kehoe is still in the school every day, and Emily is, too. … Emily has been here since I was a freshman, being an assistant, so it hasn’t been much different at all. I think the culture stays the same.”
While smaller and younger, these Raiders have plenty of firepower left. A captain last year, Rainey is the only senior on the Lebanon roster this year. She was Lebanon’s second-leading scorer behind Wright at 9.2 points per game, and of her nine double-digit games last season, six came in the Raiders’ final 10 contests.
“Sally Rainey is Sally Rainey, ridiculously athletic but probably the best leader that any team could ask for,” Emily Kehoe said. “She’s very energetic. She brings a different level of compete to practices and games that people don’t necessarily realize. She’s undersized for her position, but she makes up for that by how strong she is. She’s just a workhorse. Any coach would like that.”
Junior Catherine Cole (8.1 ppg) is also back as perhaps the best perimeter shooting threat. Ella Longacre, at a minimum 6 feet, may pick up some of the rebounding and inside scoring Wright handled in the past. Kehoe is also expecting big things from junior Molly Smith, who will assume Gradijan’s point guard responsibilities after a strong second half of last season.
“She’s higher up on the totem pole; you can see the confidence in her starting to shine out,” Kehoe said. “She’s somebody we can rely a lot on this year.”
Rainey realizes Lebanon may have to change how it does a few things without Wright as the focal point. The season seems less a new start and more a continuation, since the Raiders never got a chance to punctuate last winter’s successes.
“I think we accomplished a lot last season, but it obviously wasn’t the traditional way anybody wanted to go out,” she said. “We didn’t have that sense of closure that we would have if we’d had the last game. It’s almost like a carry-on of last season, like, ‘OK, we’re back, and we’re playing.’ ”
The younger Kehoe has certainly known success on the court.
The 2013 Lebanon High graduate made three state finals in four years as a Raider and won the last, averaging 16.2 points per game as a senior. From there, Kehoe spent four years in Maine at Division III St. Joseph’s, playing 102 games and starting all 26 of her sophomore campaign.
“The biggest thing is they’re a well-rounded group of athletes; they’re extremely smart in the classroom, and they do another sport as well,” Kehoe said. “That shows dedication and a love for being an athlete.
“I think this could be a very talented team. On paper I don’t think people would say we’re talented, but they’re going to be great. They’ll see a lot of people who haven’t played a lot. They will work harder than others and, as a coach, that’s what you want.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.