Girls basketball looks to the future with a young team

February 24, 2023

The Westside girls basketball season came to an end after losing to Millard West 60-32 in the first round of the A-7 District on Wednesday, Feb.22. The Warriors ended the season with a record of 7-16.

There were some bright spots for the Warriors, which included an upset over No. 8 Millard West. Westside sophomore Kimora Jenkins also set a school single game record with eight 3-pointers in December. But the Westside guard suffered an injury and missed most of the season.

Having a fairly new varsity team with only a few returning players opened the door for new leaders, who all played a big role in growing the team’s chemistry. Junior Sydney Hagen knew the Warriors struggled all season.

“The season didn’t go how we would’ve liked it to. We played how we needed to but we didn’t play hard enough,” Hagen said. “There were lazy mistakes that we needed to fix and towards the end of the season we started to really fix them and played how we always knew we could. Next year we will play harder than the game before and practice before. We will walk into a game knowing that we need to play at the level that we know we can.”

Westside had two graduating seniors in Elaine Wiles and Jenna Brown, who have been with the Warrior basketball program all four years. Elaine will be attending Colorado School of Mines next fall to study economics and Jenna will be attending the College of Saint Mary’s to play soccer.

“I really enjoyed the season. It was so much fun to play with this team, we’ve all grown really close. It didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but it was such an amazing journey. It’s been a great four years playing basketball at Westside” said Wiles.

Given there were only two seniors on the Westside girls basketball roster this past season, there will be a lot of returning talent for the Warriors in the upcoming school year. Freshman Nora Johnson is optimistic about the future.

“I loved the season and it was a great experience but it went by too quickly,” Johnson said. “Next season I would like to do more team bonding and get to know my teammates better,”

Wetside will have nine returning players next season and will be looking to the underclassmen to complete the roster. The future looks bright for the Warriors and they could make a return to the state tournament.