BROOKLINE, Mass. — New Dexter Southfield girls basketball coach Kianna Ray is already using the word "now" as a point of emphasis with her team.
Dexter may have a first-year coach and only two seniors. But this roster isn't young anymore, with six juniors who have played major high school minutes for multiple years.
"This group has largely been underclassmen for so long, and now that shift has really happened, where we're an upperclassmen-dominant roster, I think that they can feel that sense of urgency," Ray said. "They do have a ton of experience, and they flex that."
Last year, Dexter at times looked like a top-five squad in NEPSAC. Injuries and deteriorating morale derailed the team down the stretch and ultimately led to the school parting ways with coach Tammy Millsaps. The mood seems to have changed based on the Oct. 20 open gym I attended.
"I think last year, we all went through a hard season together, so we've all been through it, and now we're coming out on this brighter side," said junior Ella Peper. "We're ready for what's coming because a lot of people were new last year, but we have experience now. Obviously our goal is to win the championship. Our goal is to win as much as we can, and that's the standard that (Ray) sets for us."
Let's preview yet another Class AAA title contender.
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State of the program
Dexter Southfield won NEPSAC Class D titles from 2010-2012, but it really ascended to the upper levels of prep school in the late 2010s and 2020s.
Since the pandemic, Dexter has consistently been in the mix in NEPSAC AA and now AAA. The program reached the 2023 AA championship game and 2024 AA semifinals, losing both times to Nobles. Orlagh Gormley, now a Providence junior, led the squad during those years.
Dexter is on its third head coach in the last three years. Kristen Campopiano parted ways with the school following the 2024-25 season. Millsaps lasted just one year in NEPSAC before her exit last spring, paving the way for Ray.
The coach
Ray arrives at Dexter as a widely-recognized rising star in youth coaching. She scored more than 1,000 points as an All-Big 12 college player at TCU, graduating in 2020, and has been on staff with her alma mater and Baylor.
"She's been in our position before, and she played at a high level that obviously both of us and a lot of other people on our team are trying to get to," said junior Ella Peper. "So it's really good to have somebody that's been in our position leading us there, and we just know she can do it, and she's done it before, so she's a really good role model for us."
Ray also has coaching experience with Southwest Select, a prominent Adidas 3SSB grassroots program in Texas. We talked to her more about her background after her hiring in April.
So far, players are feeling the change with Ray, who is a much younger coach than her predecessors.
"Especially for us, coming off of a tough season last year, just having someone bring light into our program — you can see the changes on our teammates' faces (and) on our faces, just being able to have that light brought back into our faces and stuff," sophomore Avery Bollin said "I think just the positiveness she's bringing back into us, it's been really awesome to see."
The star players
Peper (Newton, Mass.) enters her junior season ranked seventh in the nation among 2028 prospects by ESPN. The 6-foot-4 wing is unlike any player currently in New England, and as a sophomore, Peper became the dominant force locally that many have been waiting for, reaching our All-AAA Second Team.
Preparing for college means something different for Peper, who holds more than 45 offers from almost every top program you can think of. She and Ray are working specifically on the defensive end, where Ray wants Peper to focus more on understanding systems and not letting her length and physical tools make up for mistakes.
"She does get away with a lot of stuff because of her size, so it's coaching the process and not the outcome," Ray said. "So even if she does get a great defensive stop or a deflection, but she's in the wrong spot, I'm not congratulating her on the steal. We're coaching the, 'Hey, I know this happened, but you weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to be on the block or wherever.' So I think she's starting to get that a little bit more, and she appreciates honesty and the feedback."
Bollin (Raynham, Mass.), a 6-3 center in the 2029 class, is plenty experienced in her own right as a longtime starter at Dexter. She's also one of the region's top prospects with double-digit high-major offers. Ray has similarly worked a lot with Bollin defensively, especially on lateral movement, in an effort to make her more capable of handling switches and guarding faster players.
"She's been tasked with guarding a ton of guards and point guards this offseason. It started as super uncomfortable for her, and it was a big challenge. She wasn't super confident with it," Ray said. "But now — actually, I just sat with her today — she's like, 'I'm so glad that you have me doing this because I feel more confident guarding and knowing how to move my feet.'"
The under-the-radar players
Ray, Peper and Bollin are all buzzing with excitement about Dexter's youngest member. Xzyla Simpson (Boston, Mass.) has been biding her time as a 2030 point guard and was thrust into major minutes amid injuries last season. She looked confident and in control at Dexter's open gym, and she earned praise for improvement making decisions off the dribble.
"She's really young, and I'm really proud of her because it's all older girls, and I've been in that position before, so I know hard it is," Peper said. "But she really is improving every single day, and everybody sees it, and it's really good because we need a guard like that. And I give her a lot of credit due to how young she is, but she has the experience behind her now, and she's growing so much. She's learned when to make the right reads at the rim. She knows when to pass, she knows when to dump, and she's really taking in the information that she's getting now instead of just thinking she can do her own thing. So she's really coachable, and it's really benefiting her a lot."
Dexter's wing group around Peper and Bollin is deep and includes a few Div. 1 prospects or high-level Div. 2-3 players, like Riley Hamilton (Lexington, Mass.). Hamilton, committed to Bentley, is exactly the kind of complementary 3-and-D wing who can make a difference in small moments of games. She's a solid shooter who can attack closeouts and make effort plays.
"She's really stepped up to the plate in terms of a more predominant vocal leadership role," Ray said. "She is someone that, for the most part of her career, has just led by doing, and so we're trying to add that vocal piece to her. She's someone that has the respect of all of her teammates because she gets the job done no matter what the job is."
Top newcomers
Dexter only brings in two new players, but they're significant names to know coming from the MIAA.
Maliah Pierre (Whitman, Mass.) landed on our All-MIAA Third Team last year, leading Whitman-Hanson to the Divison 2 semifinals. She recently picked up her first Div. 1 college offer from Stonehill and also just reclassified to 2028. A 5-11 slashing wing, Pierre immediately becomes one of Dexter's best defenders.
"She is a silent assassin. She's not going to say much, but defensively, she has the ability to guard truly 1-through-4. She can guard some small fives. Being able to guard that point guard position is like so hard, but her ability to navigate through screens (is huge)," Ray said. "And then offensively, (we're) just working on her pulling the trigger when she's open and not overdribbling."
A'laya Colbert (Quincy, Mass.) played center mostly at North Quincy, where she was one of the MIAA's top defensive anchors, before reclassifying to 2028 and transferring. Ray envisions more for Colbert as a forward who can drive from the perimeter.
"We just had a film session today, just highlighting the growth that she has had, and it largely is just confidence (in) knowing when to drive, knowing where to drive, just perimeter passing," Ray said. "She just has tremendous value for us all over both ends of the ball."
Our expectations
Dexter Southfield only has 11 players on its roster and I truly believe all 11 can produce at the Class AAA level. This makes the team, on paper, arguably the best top-to-bottom in New England — with a transcendent star in Peper leading the way.
But Dexter has fielded talented teams in recent years and come up short because of other reasons, like injuries, youth, and more recently, head coaches who didn't bring the squad together.
Is Ray the voice that can guide these players all the way to a title? She's drawn positive reviews from her team and from other NEPSAC coaches. But winning Class AAA as a first-year coach would be quite a feat with the amount of established winners on the opposing sidelines.
The vibes at Dexter seem high, though vibes are always high in the preseason. It's all about staying together through adversity during the winter. But I'm certain this roster is capable of bringing home a championship.
