The Lady Vikings basketball team had what head coach Pete Kenah called a “fairytale” season this winter. The girls’ team racked up a division championship, regional championship and an overall 21-5 record before losing on Mar. 7 against Baltimore Polytechnic in the state semifinal at UMBC.
The regional championship is Kenah’s second in eleven seasons. His first regional championship team in 2007 consisted of four stars that played the vast majority of the minutes, but this year’s team couldn’t have been more different, Kenah said.
All eleven players played in the first half of every regular season game except one. With no main star, the Vikes were successful this year mainly due to defense, allowing a stingy 38.2 points per game on the season. Along with strong defense, the balanced talent is something that contributed to the team’s success this year.
“Opposing coaches said it was really hard to prepare for us; I don’t know if they could key in on one specific person,” Kenah said. “The challenge was seeing who had it that particular night.”
There was one similarity Kenah pointed out between this year’s team and the ’07 team, however; his team beat Gaithersburg in the regional final both times.
Gaithersburg, the three time defending regional champion and two-time defending state champion, managed to score only one point in the first quarter of Whitman’s 46-31 win in the regional final game. After losing to Gaithersburg in the playoffs the last three years, beating them became that much sweeter.
“It really felt amazing, especially because they’ve knocked us out the past three years,” guard Kim Durante said. “I think that made it that much more special. All the work we put in finally paid off, it just felt so awesome to be rewarded.”
The Vikes saw that they had potential over the summer on the AAU circuit. They also had a junior class who went undefeated their only two years on JV. This winning mentality seems to have transferred over to the varsity team this year.
“I think the JV players who come up off the streak are confident,” forward Avery Witt said. “We don’t expect to lose, so when we do lose it’s kind of shocking. I think that can be a good thing that when we walk on the court we expect to win, we want to win.”
Throughout the season, Kenah showed the team film on their upcoming opponents. He also handed out written reports on each team, which consisted of information like which players to look out for, the statistical averages of the other team and defensive assignments. Kenah took his preparation a step further, however, for playoff time.
“There were different clips from sports movies, different speeches from coaches,” Durante said. “Kenah would put different pictures of trophies or teams winning championships in the locker rooms we’d go to. He’d literally cover the walls with these pieces of paper. He’d write us notes, and just get us really excited, so I think it helped a lot.”
Despite the loss of key senior leaders, the team looks like it could be as good, if not better, next year. Kenah believes that they are losing a lot defensively this year, but he said that the offense will improve. He also said two upcoming sophomores have the potential to play varsity next year, as does a talented incoming freshman. In addition, the Lady Vikes return six players who gained a lot of valuable playoff experience.
“I think we have so much potential for next year because a lot of the people returning played in the state semifinals,” Witt said. “I can say for myself at least that in the semifinal I’ve never been more nervous. I think if we got back there next year I would be so much calmer.”
As for this year’s senior class, it appears that they accomplished a goal set right from the beginning of their high school career.
“We had a chant our freshman year that we’d always say when we’d break the huddle,” Durante said. “It was ‘UMBC.’”
