By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
With a little over half the season already in the books, the Chapman girl’s basketball team will look to close out the 2022-23 campaign strong, looking to earn a winning season for the first time in three years.
The Lady Irish look much improved from their 8-13 squad a season ago, and have already equaled that win total, entering the back stretch of February at 8-7.
“We’ve taken a step beyond what we did last year and we came out really playing well after Christmas break,” Chapman head coach Michael Wahlmeier said. “That loss to Abilene really fueled us. Even in our few losses here we’ve been playing well we just haven’t had the shots go down.”
The Irish got off to a high-flying start, winning seven of their first ten to kick off the season, including a four-game winning streak to open 2023.
“We’ve really grown in our confidence,” Wahlmeier said. “I think at the beginning of the season we had some of that but winning some games early helped with that and it only grew from there.”
For this year’s Lady Irish, Maya Kirkpatrick, Ava Locke, and Keira Jones make up a big three that have been hard on opposing defenses, combining to score 33 points and grab 18 boards per game.
“Maya is shooting the ball really well and we’ve had some games where she’s really put us on her shoulders down the stretch,” he said. “That leadership is something we really need. Kira has also been big this year on both ends of the floor guarding our opponent's best post player and Ava has been knocking down threes at a very high level so far.”
Chapman has cooled off a bit since their hot start, falling in four of their last five games, but has gone toe to toe with several ranked opponents in that stretch, falling most recently to #9 Southeast of Saline on Friday.
“I don’t think we’re playing our best yet but we’re trending upwards and that’s a positive,” he said. “We’ll continue to add more sets this week to show people things that they maybe haven’t seen yet.”
The ranked gauntlet will continue in the coming weeks as the Lady Irish prepare to square off with #4 Wamego and #9 Rock Creek, but hopes remain high that Chapman can continue to build momentum and pick up some more big wins ahead of the sub-state tournament at the end of February.
“We set our goal at 11 wins to guarantee ourselves a winning season,” Wahlmeier said. “We’re not quite there yet and we know that this is the grueling part of our schedule. We have a few more to get and when we do we’ll set the bar a little higher. Some renewed focus is needed after three close losses but we’ve done a great job in practice here recently.”
Chapman will be back in action on Tuesday evening when the Lady Irish travel to Wamego for the aforementioned matchup with the #4 Lady Raiders.
For continuing coverage of Lady Irish hoops all season long, stay tuned to the Salina Post.