From the first day of tryouts to now, the SHS girls basketball team has been practicing, playing and doing everything they could to be the most prepared for the ultimate test of their season, sectionals. They will play tonight against the Roncalli Rebels to keep their season alive.

According to senior starter Ashley Raisor, their main focus is to “get the dub so they can get to the next round.”

The Lady Cards finished the regular season 5-17 due to struggles finding manpower, experience and building a close-knit environment. Since October, they have spent time overcoming these obstacles in hopes of improving their play and how they compete against opponents. Their efforts will be put to the test in their play in their first sectional game.

Head Coach Adam Morelock believes SHS started at a disadvantage against some of their competitors due to the recruiting pool and unexpected changes to the roster at the start of the season.

“Starting day two or three of the season, we lost a starting center and a guard (substitute) on the varsity (team),” Morelock said. “I think that forced a lot of the younger girls to play faster than they were ready to.”

One of these players was sophomore center Madelyn Newhouse. She played for the freshman team just one year ago and was unexpectedly forced to take on the role of a leader for the varsity team.

Newhouse said the scene is  “a lot faster and the competition is a lot different” than her previous seasons playing basketball.

Working with less experience than they expected, the team has been working on getting better fundamentally and becoming a more cohesive team in order to see improvement in their play. Raisor says the girls have done a lot of team bonding in order to connect more on and off the court.

Recently, the team has been looking short term into what they hope to accomplish against Roncalli. They have prepared to the best of their ability for what Roncalli has to offer, including some notoriously skilled offensive players. However, the team is also thinking long term on how to have success in future seasons. Raisor is the sole senior and they are hoping to fill the gap she will leave and then some with offseason work and developing talent among the players.

Morelock says that one of the keys to seeing noticeable improvement is the involvement of the girls in AAU and travel basketball. This is one difference between SHS and some of the leaders in the state for girls basketball.

He said he wants to see attitudes change from “I play basketball from October to February” to “I am a basketball player.”

Long term, there are things on the team’s minds, but as of now, the thing that matters most is how they fare against the Rebels, for the loser at the end of the night will have to hang up their jerseys until next winter.