Repeating as 4A central zone champions will be no easy task for the Lindsay Thurber Raiders.
But the senior girl’s basketball team is up for the challenge as the season officially gets underway.
Head coach Kathy Lalor said she’s feeling great about the team this season.
“I think we’re always working at trying to win that league championship and then go on and make to provincials. That’s always a goal,” she said. “But you know we have a lot of mini-goals along the way to be successful.”
“We’re just really looking forward to this season and seeing what this group of girls can do.”
After they won the league final, the Raiders went to provincials where they won their first game and finished in the top eight squads in the tournament.
“We were really young last year but just gained a ton of experience and that’s been awesome for us coming into this year,” she added.
The Raiders didn’t have a single-player return last season but this time around it’s quite the opposite with eight coming back.
Of those eight returnees, five of them make up all the Grade 12’s on the roster with the remaining three in Grade 11. In total, the senior team consists of five Grade 11’s and two Grade 10’s.
The Raiders roster of 12 players includes Jovana Prodanovic, McKinley Penninga, Jorgia Hicks, Nadia McKeage, Marin Walton, Nilah Le, Madelyn DeZutter, Tricia Madourie, Adara Gyori, Amelia Roberts, Jaeda Marquart, and Chloe Penz.
“We’ve got some experience and we’ve got some really good leadership on the team this year,” Lalor said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do but I really feel like we’ve got a combination of things that are really going to help us hopefully be successful as we go.”
Lalor is thrilled about their size and length around the hoop and the team’s mindset about basketball. How often they play she said really differentiates how successful your squad will be when they have knowledge about the game.
“I would say another component is the team has pretty good chemistry because they’ve played together quite a bit. I think that’s going to be one of the things that add to our success is continuing to do what we’re doing as a group,” Lalor said.
On Tuesday, Dec. 6 the Raiders will play their first league game at Lindsay Thurber High School against Lacombe.