As tennis and volleyball seasons are wrapped up, the girls’ basketball season is gearing up. The first practice was Nov. 13. There are 18 girls competing this year, with three seniors: Sabrina Bellar, Shannon Drouhard, and Lacey Pauly. Despite the small numbers, a significant amount of players are returning varsity or JV.

“I am really looking forward to this season,” head coach Pat Carl said. “We have a lot of experience back, and I’m excited to see the contributions our younger players can bring to the team.”

This summer, Coach Carl, along with assistants Justin Regehr and Ryan King had the team get some extra time in with summer league basketball. Larger schools like Goddard and Maize were competitors.

“The competition really should help us as we enter the always tough CPL and Sub-State,” Coach Carl said, “especially since we could be facing Kingman and Hesston.”

The team also prepared for the season by attending a team camp this summer in Hutchinson. The Lady Cards beat Hutch, Salina South, Halstead, Nickerson, and Haven, but they lost to 5A team KC Harmon.

“I think summer league helped a lot,” junior Makenzie Curry said. “It let us see what we could do and that we work well together before the actual season started.”

After ending last year’s season on a loss from Cheney, the girls are ready to compete this season.

“I’m very excited to be on the court with my team,” Pauly said. “I’m ready to make senior year memorable--I think we have a good chance of being being league champs and going to state.”

The first basketball game is on Dec. 1 at Conway Springs against Independent.