Our school is one of the most notorious schools in the area when it comes to sports. During the wintertime, we have four sports going on, men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, and girl’s swimming. These sports have competed in the area for the past decade and continue to shine bright to begin the new year. Here is a list of all of our sports this winter season, and how they are doing, as well as their goals for finishing the season.
Men’s Basketball: You could argue that basketball is our school’s best sport every year, and this season was no exception. Last season they finished with a 24-5 record, and fell just short of another district title. While this may have been a disappointing ending for some, it fueled the team going into this season. Coach Mitch McHenry returned to coach another defensively smothering lineup behind senior Jackson Shorter and defensive specialist, junior Reese Kimrey.
What makes this team different from last year was the new blood behind those two stars. Breakout junior, Brock Thompson, provided a nice one two punch with Shorter in the front-court and has even filled in for the latter early in the season when he was out with an injury. Junior guards Elijah Nabors and Brayden Rubidoux added outside shooting, ball handling, and scoring to the group while also providing great defense.
The bench was rounded out by senior forward Levi Phillips, and two more junior guards, Vince Mhire, and Rylee Tan. This squad held 18 of their 26 opponents to less than 50 points, and finished with a 23-3 record in the regular season. The boys team currently ranks in the top 10 in the state and continues to impress as they try to close the season with a title.
“I think our whole team has broken out this year honestly. we’ve just gotten so much better, all of us have, I don’t think it’s just a single individual, we’ve all just gotten better,” Thompson said.
Women’s Basketball: Just like their fellow male counterparts, the Lady Chiefs were extremely dominant this season. The team was led by home-grown star Mikayla Pilley, who has reached the goal of scoring more than 1,000 career points in her four year career. Allison Scott added great physicality, and Emily Crain was an incredible three-point shooter that adds more floor spacing.
While the team lost senior Mikayla Smith at the beginning of the season to injury, they found production in freshman Taylen Whited, young forward Aniyah Doig, and 6 ‘2 Nixa transfer, Lexi Ringgold.
Coach Leslie Hanchey continued to guide this team as they won 23 games this season which included their fourth Pink and White Championship in the past five years. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, in all of those wins the team outscored their opponents by an average of 31 points. This group is focused on winning another state title this year and finishing out the season strong.
“We’re feeling good about where we are at. Obviously, there are things we can do better and improvements we need to make. The things we are mainly focusing on are the little things that need to improve like our communication, just overall our teamwork on the floor,” Scott said.
Girls Swim: The season for the girls started immediately after the guys season. New head coach Jordan Boyce worked to keep the good times going, even after the loss of many productive swimmers in the offseason. After a rough start due to illnesses, the girls started to ramp up the success by placing seventh at the Ozark Invitational and ninth at the South West Missouri Championship.
Sophomore Caroline Trotman continued to bring a winning mind set that kept the team motivated throughout the long season. After a two year break, senior Sophia Winders returned for her last season to form a great relay with fellow senior Delaney Sisney.
Morgan Seiler took another step up in her junior year and was third on the team in points. The girls team finished the season strong and had one swimmer place in the top 10 at state. With the season over the team is looking forward to another year under the new regime.
“We had a couple individuals qualify for state and got all three of our relay’s in, so that was fun. It was a great moment for our coaches since they’re new and for our seniors as well,” Winders said.
Wrestling: The boys and girls had another productive season. The chiefs competed at the Kinloch Classic and Eldon Christmas Clash early in the season and finished with high marks. On the boy’s side, despite being decimated by injuries to start the season, others have stepped up. Joseph Woodard went to state as an alternate, while Garrett Cookman and Jahan Huynh qualified individually. Huynh finished just one win away from placing at state.
The team overall only lost 4 duels this season, which is even more impressive considering the team was without six of their starters for a significant portion of the season. Beau Benton earned his 100th win in his final season as a chief, which was a huge personal accomplishment.
Meanwhile, on the girl’s side, Kylie Galyean and Natalie Hernandez have been the consistent performers with some success from some of the newcomers like Kyra Samuel. Hannah Herrera is regarded as one of the leaders on the team, whose quick feet and instincts have been her calling card.
“We had a lot of new girls this year, and this season went very well with those new girls learning. We had a lot of wins and medalists this year and I think they fought as hard as they could have. I think what we’re most proud of is not medaling, but showing up every day and giving it our best effort, because this sport is not very easy to keep coming back to,” Galyean said.
“Overall we had a pretty decent season, we had I think 12 duels on the season and only lost four of them. One thing I’m proud of is our whole team’s improvement and growing just getting better especially with a few of our starters that have been in there for four years leaving,” Benton said.
