All Lake Travis head coach Ted Dydalewicz knew about his team coming in was that he had some talented seniors, and a lineup without a point guard.

Elaine Houston, Kat Vidovic and Dara Brown have seen the majority of the floor time among all the seniors, and returned a solid core, but Lake Travis runs a wide-open offense that always excels in up-tempo situations dictated by the point guard position. Without one, it ends up being a season punctuated by inconsistency.

“Thanks to a player moving away and another player deciding to play soccer, we really had a void at the point guard position,” Dydalewicz said. “Kat stepped up and said she’d play the point, and whenever you’ve got a player with her talent and her vision willing to make that position change, you go with it.”

It helped that Dydalewicz had a ready-made replacement on the wing in niece and sophomore Taylor Dydalewicz, a scoring machine that’s probably best left to finding a comfortable spot on the floor to start draining shots. The responsibility of bringing the ball up the floor and finding shots for everyone else was probably a bit more pressure than the elder Dydalewicz was willing to put on her.

“The move solidified everything,” Dydalewicz said. “Brown could stay at the shooting guard spot where she excels, I could rotate in Allie Stone and Katie Neuse behind Vidovic, Taylor could play on the wing and we knew we’d be fine underneath with Houston leading the way.”

Of all the Lake Travis players, no one has improved from year to year like Houston. Vidovic and Brown have certainly gotten better, but with post players, evolving is a little tricky, especially when you’re a teenager trying to learn to play within a tall frame that you’re still getting used to.

“Houston made such a leap between her sophomore and junior seasons,” Dydalewicz said. “Defensively and rebounding, I couldn’t ask for any more from her than she gave us last year. I’m thinking this year she’ll really become a big offensive threat, so it’s been fun to watch her improve the way she has.”

She’ll get help in the post from Kaila Svetlik, Morgan Blodgett and Annik Morris.

The rest of the Lady Cavs that should see some action are Jordyn Pollack, Abbie Mahlum and Madison Vickery.

The district will be a fight for five weeks, just like last season, and despite returning a bevy of talent from last year’s playoff team, the Lady Cavaliers are being picked by most to finish fourth or fifth in the district. It doesn’t make much sense to Dydalewicz.

“You’d think after making the playoffs year after year, these girls would get more respect than that,” Dydalewicz said. “But hey, we know it won’t be easy and we feel like we’ll be back in the playoffs if everything falls the way we think it will.”

Dydalewicz thinks the big tests again will come with tournaments at New Braunfels Canyon and Corpus Christi.

“We always feel like those are the turning points of our season. That’s where we really start to understand what we have for a team,” he said. “And I think our game against Belton next Monday should be a good one. They’ve got a good team up there and that’s another really good test for us this early in the season.”

The Lady Cavaliers have already knocked out two wins to start the season, cruising past Crockett in a 54-36 season-opening win, and passing their first big test with a 52-51 win over New Braunfels Canyon.

Dydalewicz led Lake Travis in scoring with 16 points, followed by Vidovic with 15, Houston with six, Blodgett with five, Svetlik with four, Brown with four and Neuse with two.

Then came the Canyon game last Friday in New Braunfels.

Lake Travis held a 12-point lead at halftime, but watched it get shaved down over the course of the second half, thanks to some foul trouble for the Lady Cavaliers.

The 45-45 tie was a tough spot to be in after feeling like they had the game won.

“We could have folded right there, especially when Canyon scored the first two baskets of overtime,” Dydalewicz said. “But we had some great senior leadership from Houston and Vidovic, knocking down two big shots for us to get us right back in the mix.”

Down 51-50 with just seconds left, Taylor Dydalewicz deflected a Canyon pass that Brown picked off and kicked back to Dydalewicz, who deferred to Houston, who nailed the game-winning shot.

“We showed a lot of character and a lot of promise in that game,” the elder Dydalewicz said. “We saw those seniors come through at the end and lead the way. That’s great to see this early.”

Houston led the way with the game winner and the scoring lead, racking up 19 points. Dydalewicz had 11, Vidovic had eight, Brown had eight and Blodgett had six.

“I always feel like that first game against Canyon is going to tell me a lot about what kind of team I have,” Dydalewicz said. “So I feel pretty good about our chances right now. We competed with a tough team from start to finish.”