By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Sacred Heart Lady Knights girls basketball team came flying out of the gates in 2020-2021, winning six of their first eight games.
A recent skid has set Sacred Heart back a bit, but heading into the final month of the season, the team’s 7-5 record is certainly one that they can build on heading into the postseason.
“There’s always something that we need to get better at but overall I’m happy with where we’re at,” Knights head coach Keenan Thompson said. “I wouldn’t want to settle here but as coaches we feel like we have a roadmap of which direction we need to take this team.”
The Sacred Heart defense has been stifling this season, holding opponents to under 40 points per game on average and allowing the offense to find its rhythm.
“We’ve got to score the ball a little bit better,” Thompson said. “We’re doing a great job holding teams to under 40 but now we need to score the ball better in the half court.”
While the team has lost three of their last four games, the players continue to grow and develop at a rate that has impressed Coach Thompson.
“The best thing I’ve seen from this team this year is their growth,” he said. “All of our players from our least experienced freshman to our most seasoned seniors have gotten much better in one aspect or another.”
The Lady Knights have also begun to buy into the culture of toughness and gritty defense at Sacred Heart, despite struggling at times early on.
“As a team we’ve gotten a lot tougher,” he said. “At the beginning of the year we had no transition game, we struggled inside and we didn’t hold ourselves accountable. Now we’re really starting to walk the culture instead of just talking the culture.”
The remaining road for Sacred Heart will be a short one, featuring just three remaining opponents at this point in time.
The Lady Knights will need to make the most of each of these games as they face 7-9 Minneapolis, 4-6 Council Grove and 3-10 Ellsworth.
If Sacred Heart can build up some momentum ahead of sub-state, they could certainly be in the mix to emerge from the bracket and head back to the state tournament.
“We feel like we can make the state tournament,” Thompson said. “I tell the girls all the time ‘I’m not going to gas you up if I don’t believe you can do something.’ We really believe that that’s one of our goals we can meet. It might be a rough road to get there but that’s where we want to be.”
Sacred Heart will be back in action on Friday when they host the 7-9 Minneapolis Lions.