With a large graduating group of seniors from the 22-23 season, many people said the Lady Indians Basketball team wouldn’t be successful this year, but this comment was severely wrong! With no returning varsity players from the previous year, this caused people to doubt the teams abilities this season. Against all odds, the girls team has defined expectations by securing a spot at the state tournament. Their hard work and determination paid off in the end.
Bringing into the season a whole new team, it took time to get comfortable with one another and play as a team. The Indians ended December with a record of 2-2. With two tough losses against Valley Center and Clearwater, the team was determined to bounce back. Right before Christmas break the girls played our district rival, the Garden Plain Owls. It was a close game but the girls came out on top and won 34-29.
Starting off January with wins over Nickerson and El Dorado, the Lady Indians were finally getting into the groove of things. They started preparing for harder competition such as, McPherson and Wellington. Heading into the Haven tournament the teams record was 5-4. The first game of the tournament the Lady Indians went into double overtime against Circle, but ended up losing a close match up of 59-50. They then won against Maize (39-33) and lost to Haven (38-49). The girls improved and learned from their mistakes heading into February.
Following February the Lady Indians started off the month strong with 3 wins in a row. They started facing teams that they had played before and were working hard each day to prepare for them. The rest of the season had many ups and downs but when sub-state came around, the girls were determined to show how their hard work has paid off. They ended the regular season with a record of 12-8 and were the #6 seed going into sub-state.
The first round of sub-state the girls played a tough game against Chapman, winning 51-48. In this game the girls were down by quite a bit but started to quickly regain those lost points after halftime. The last quarter of the game was close the majority of the time but the girls held on to the lead and won. Following their win against Chapman they began preparing to face Circle and get revenge. It was a rough game but they pulled through and won 42-36. At halftime, the Lady Indians were down by double digits. They came back from another close game and defeated Circle.
All this hard work led to the team advancing to state when people thought they wouldn’t make it past the first round of sub-state. This shows how hard they worked to get to where they are at. We hope you all will come and show your support for the girls on Wednesday where they will compete against Wellington at 2:00 pm. The game is located at Tony’s Pizza Events Center in Salina.
