Over the past four years, the Laprise sisters have been a mainstay on just about every box sheet that Agawam girls basketall played.
But on Saturday, the Class of 2026 will tip-off its last scheduled game of the regular season.
“Throughout my four years, I definitely grew as a player and a leader” Agawam’s Bella Laprise said. “My freshman year, I was very timid and shy and I was kind of scared with the ball, and I was also kind of scared of the upperclassmen on my team.
“(But) throughout the rest of the years, I definitely gained a lot of confidence (and) gained more skill. I also grew into my leadership position my junior and senior year, when I realized that I was one of the starting five and that a lot of the younger girls looked up to me.”
Bella and Sophia Laprise first joined the varsity team as freshman in the 2022-2023 season. Not only did they quickly earned themselves minutes on the court, they each carved out a role on offense, with Sophia scoring the fifth-most (80) and Bella scoring sixth-most on the season (65).
With their top four scorers graduating that spring, Agawam’s offense had big shoes to fill going into the 2023-2024 season. Bella stepped up for Agawam and became one of the team’s primary scorers, finishing the season with a team-high 179 points. Agawam clinched a 13-8 record, qualifying for both the Western Mass. Class A tournament and the Division II state tournament.
photo by J. Anthony Roberts
Both sisters continued their development as juniors, with Bella cracking 200 points scored on the season and Sophia scoring 130 points, third-most on the team. After sharing the Central league title with Pope Francis the previous year, Agawam clinched the league title outright in 2024-2025. Agawam finished the year with a 16-5 record, reaching the first round of the WMass tournament and the preliminary round of the D-II state tournament.
“Something that (I learned is) really important is practicing how you want to play because obviously if you’re not trying hard at practice, then you’re not going to be ready when it comes time for the games,” Sophia said. “So whenever we’re not running our hardest or we’re (making) slow passes, I would tell (my younger teammates) to pick it up and push harder because when the game starts, you don’t want to have a lazy pass that gets stolen right away because you weren’t ready.
“Put 100% of your effort in… obsession and hard work beats talent every time.”
But Bella and Sophia Laprise are not Agawam’s only members of the Class of 2026. Carly Calabrese was called up to varsity late in her freshman year before getting playing time as a sophomore. The senior guard has continued to improve over her time at Agawam and has been an integral part of the team’s cohesiveness over the past few years.
“We hadn’t won (the league) in back-to-back years in 30 years and a lot of that is huge of them,” Agawam girls basketball coach Tim Murphy said. “… this year, record-wise, we’re struggling little bit compared to the last few years because we have so many inexperienced (players).
“But the three (seniors), in spite of what the record might show this year, they’re leaving the program in a better place than they found it.”
As Murphy noted, Agawam has struggled this season, entering Saturday’s game with a 5-12 record. While the team did not qualify for the WMass tournament and is unlikely to qualify for the state tournament, Agawam will have two consolation games left to schedule before wrapping the 2025-2026 season.
“I hope to see next year… that same kind of mentality that even if the game isn’t going your way, even if it’s a struggle for you that night… being able to try to reset yourself, being able to try to think about the next play (and) being able to have that resilience that they’ve started to really develop the last few years, that I think is the biggest thing I hope that the rest of their teammates take from (these seniors),” Murphy said.
As they prepare to take the court for the final time in the coming days, Bella’s mind goes back to Agawam’s final home game of the season last year on Feb. 19 against Chicopee Comp.
“It was tied with about 30 seconds left,” Bella recalled. “I had the ball, and I dribbled down the court, and I scored a buzzer-beater to win the game.”
Sophia recalls making the pass to set her sister up for the game-winning shot. But for her, its the time she spent sharing meals and bonding with her teammates that she’ll cherish the most.
“The most memorable things for me about basketball is off the court, like, when we have pasta parties with our team — and senior tagging especially is very memorable,” Sophia said.
