 It hasn't been the smoothest start to Casey Ryerson's career as the head coach for the Bemidji Girls hockey team. The Jacks are 0-1-4 so far on their young season, but with plenty of season remaining, the team remains optimistic. Justin Prince has more. He may only be six months into his new job as the Lumberjacks head coach, but Casey Ryerson says the transition from assistant last year to bench boss this year has been enjoyable. It's good having the same face two years in a row, even if I wasn't the head coach I was still here as the assistant so it's kind of the same plan. He kind of took a lot of what Jackie laid down and he brought that, but he brought his own twist to it. Ryerson inherits a team that went 10-16 last year and although many of the players already have a lot of varsity experience, he says they still have a lot of growing up to do. There's two different sides of it. It's emotional and physical development and I got some that are really low in both of them, but we're going to do our best to get them mature through the season. If the Jacks hope to succeed, they say everything will start with their effort on the defensive end. And that's been the big stress this year is the diesel and coverage and covering your person, not losing your spot. We're just going to get stronger defensively and as the offensive opportunities come, we're just going to capitalize on them more. And although they refuse to measure this year by the amount of wins and losses they have. My expectations right now is just that we get better every game and every practice that we're just improving all the time. It's not going to be a wins-loss season that we're going to focus on. It's just going to be development and getting the program turned around and for the better. If they can continue to grow, they believe they could surprise come the end of the season. I think that we definitely could come out back at the end of the season and make some noise, but I mean that depends on everyone on the team. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.