Star duo Caterina Ravosa and Selah Prignano led the rise of Wilbraham & Monson into a NEPSAC-wide girls basketball contender. Ravosa scored more than 2,500 career prep school points and Prignano cleared 1,000 herself.
Both earned Division 1 commitments (Ravosa to Fairfield, Prignano to Sacred Heart). Both are now off at college, leaving the Titans to define their next era.
With a strong 2028 class, a rising 2029 guard and a splash postgraduate addition, WMA has a core to stay competitive at the top of Class AA. Here's how they're shaping up for this winter.
State of the program
Wilbraham & Monson had a quiet history in prep school girls basketball until very recently, when the program broke through to win the Class C championship in 2023-24.
Immediately, the Titans were ready for a leap. They moved all the way up to Class AA the following season and proved they belonged by making the semifinals. Last year, WMA was back again with another semifinal appearance — and a second straight loss to Worcester Academy.
The Class AA picture hasn't changed much with only nine schools involved. That means WMA remains in the top tier of the class.
The coach
Durelle Brown has overseen the Titans' rise to regional prominence. A New Britain, Conn., native, Brown is a NEPSAC grad himself via Kingswood Oxford. He was a captain and 1,600-point scorer at Manhattan before playing professionally overseas for 10 years.
Brown then returned to coach the Kingswood Oxford boys in 2012 and joined Wilbraham & Monson in 2014.
The star player
The roster is wide open for Addison Brennan (Monroe, Conn.), our fourth-ranked prospect in the 2028 class, to take command as perhaps Class AA's top center. Brown feels that after years of learning under Ravosa and previously Hannah Grudzien, Brennan has the confidence to step into her own starring role.
"I think she's looked at this happy-go-lucky, jolly kid, but there's a lot of desire in there," Brown said. "I think people will be shocked that she's jumping into that leadership role where she wants to be looked upon and she wants to be looked up to."
Brennan, a 6-foot-4 big with developed 3-point touch, has more than 20 Division 1 offers largely from mid-majors around the Northeast. And if the summer's Scholastic Showcase was any indication, she's eager to enforce her presence more as an inside scorer and rebounder.
"It was more proven at the NEPSAC Showcase, where she's getting two feet in the lane, and she's finishing stronger on the basket. She can already shoot the 3, and she's now rebounding and blocking shots," Brown said. "All of her potential is starting to become reality, and it's really, really fun to watch."
Under-the-radar players
Brennan is the focal point, but Wilbraham & Monson will need more scoring help with the aforementioned losses of their 2026 stars. Fortunately, the Titans have a few underrated members from last year's rotation capable of stepping up.
In the 2028 class, Avery Vanderburg (Madison, Conn.) just received her first Division 1 offer from Loyola Maryland. Brown believes the 5-foot-9 wing can contend for AA Defensive Player of the Year, and she'll also be relied on to score more.
Classmate Gabby Ravosa (East Longmeadow, Mass.) is a very different type of player from her older sister, but the younger Ravosa has emerged as an impact player in her own right and is on the cusp of her first Div. 1 offers. A long, mobile 6-foot forward, Ravosa's defensive versatility cements her value in this rotation.
"She can guard 1-through-5 very easily," Brown said. "Her understanding and moving feet, her angles — she's a prototypical defender. And yet she's small, but wiry strong, where she can guard your 5. She battles Addison every day in practice."
When current senior point guard Iyanna Hodge went down with an injury at last year's Nickerson Showcase, that opened the door for 2029 point guard Olivia Macklin (Waterbury, Conn.). Macklin impressed with her toughness and willingness to drive and score, and since last season, she's added offers from Howard and Connecticut.
Brown believes the surprise factor and nerves have worn off, and he can now expect Macklin to confidently be a playmaking guard as a sophomore.
"Liv has an 'it' factor about her game that you just can't teach, and I think that's what makes her special. It's (about) just me coaching her up and continuing to teach her how to run a team," he said.
Top newcomers
The excitement Brown has towards Yuka Kanatani's potential impact on this program is palpable.
Kanatani, a 5-foot-4 point guard, joined the Titans in late summer from Ehime, Japan. She has FIBA playing experience that has given her an advantage with her on-court leadership.
"She's this super efficient scorer. The beauty of her is, she grows up in FIBA basketball, so she shoots at the 20-foot, 22-foot 3-point line already, and she just has this uncanny ability to use ball screens, snake people, find people. (She's) this amazing pass-first point guard, which is my pride and joy."
Brown says Division 1 schools are already showing interest and Kanatani should be an immediate impact player in her first game.
"She's a postgrad, but she's older in the sense of, when you play FIBA basketball, it's a much more mature game. And I love just the way she coaches her teammates up," he said. "It's been this amazing start to the year with receiving her and how they view her and how they work with her, which is really fun. And her work ethic is crazy."
WMA also brings in Ella Chaszar, the daughter of Nicole Chaszar, head coach at Western New England. Brown called the freshman guard "a pindown, flare, stagger nightmare" and believes she can be one of the best 3-point shooters in program history.
Our expectations
Though Wilbraham & Monson doesn't have the same star scoring power this year, the roster feels deeper than most in Class AA. Beyond who we've mentioned, the senior Hodge (Springfield, Mass.) and junior Kinsleigh Vanderburg (Avery's twin) have plenty of experience in the rotation at this level, too.
It's a mix of high-floor and high ceiling outcomes. At the very least, Brennan will grab rebounds and patrol the paint, but she has serious potential as an offensive mismatch. The pieces around her all show flashes of scoring upside. And if Kanatani matches the buzz around her, she could alter the shape of WMA's season herself.
Class AA again has a top tier of four teams, with MacDuffie essentially replacing Darrow (now in AAA) among the group. You could rank those four — WMA, MacDuffie, Worcester Academy and Northfield Mount Hermon — in any order and have a reasonable argument. I'm excited to see how this class plays out.
