By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
On the heels of a 10-11 season and graduating a huge senior class, the Salina Central girl’s basketball team will look to take the next step this year with a fresh-faced squad and new leadership.
With long-time head coach Chris Fear sliding over to coach the boys, Paige Talbott will take the reigns of the girls' program at Central ahead of the new campaign.
Five seniors will headline this year’s team with big contributions expected out of Finley Jones, Remi Myers, Charlize Waltman, Tahlia Morris and Tessa Snyder.
The Lady Mustangs will also get big minutes from a core of four juniors that includes Lexi Guerrero, Macy O’Hara, Brooke Banninger, and Addison Hansen, as well as a few impact sophomores that should develop well throughout the season.
We had a chance to catch up with Coach Talbott ahead of the 2024-25 season to get her thoughts on this year’s Lady Mustangs.
Q: What is your vision for the culture of girl's basketball here at Salina Central?
A: There’s already a culture of excellence here around this program and I’m really grateful that the coaches before me have engrained that into our Lady Mustangs. We have a great group here, and we’re going to continue to have good character on and off the court. Each of our players is held to a very high standard, but they push each other and they’re all taking accountability to sustain our culture.
Q: What feels like the biggest known strength of this team ahead of the new season?
A: I know this team is going to work hard, and these girls have the kind of effort that you can’t coach. They fight on the floor for those 50-50 balls and we work hard on the glass. Any play that takes willpower and desire I believe that we’ll come out on top and that character and work ethic is great to see.
Q: What are some of the biggest question marks that you’ll be looking for answers for in these first few games?
A: These girls have played together for the last couple of years and they do have good team chemistry. They’ve had an incredible record at the JV level, and they know how to win, but I think they know that we’ll have to pick it up to play at the next level. This is a level of competition that they haven’t seen before, and we’ll have to be physical with the teams we play. We’ll have to find some more ways to score, and we’ll need to share the ball well and play within our roles.
Q: What are the biggest goals or expectations this team is looking to achieve this year?
A: We’ve talked about our goals as a team. Obviously we want to be above .500 and we want to be playing our best basketball and make a run at the end of the season but they know we have a lot to learn at the beginning of the season and we’ll have to learn game by game to improve every single day.
The Lady Mustangs will open the new year on the road at Andover Central on Friday, December 6th.