Women’s basketball splits opening games

The women’s basketball team started its season off winning a game and losing a game, beating Charles City on Tuesday, Nov. 26 55-37 and losing a week later on Dec. 3 to Cedar Rapids Kennedy 45-67.

In the Charles City game, senior Madison Wood led the team in scoring with 13 points, while junior Jamie Becker and sophomore Emma Gerdes each got 10 points and junior Adrienne Boettger put in eight. In the Cedar Rapids Kennedy game, junior Addison Long led the team with 12 points, Wood put in 11 points and Boettger got 10 points. The game ended with Cedar Falls having 21 turnovers and Kennedy having 12.

This year the team’s goals are to get better as a team and also individually get better each game. Ultimately they are shooting to make it to State. “This year is early yet, but it appears the team chemistry is much better than last year,” head coach Dan List said.

The team does many bonding things together before and during the season. They have team meals, team sleepovers and during the summer they have many camps where they would just get some extra work in together.

“My favorite part of basketball is all the girls and coaches. Everyone gets along great; we would do anything for each other, which makes playing together so much more fun,” Boettger said.

The varsity team has 11 players on it this year: seniors Wood and Symone Robinson; juniors Becker, Boettger, Martee Grainger, Allison Griffin, Lauryn Kramer and Long; sophomores Anne Bigler, Ellie Burken and Gerdes.

As a senior Wood would like to win as many games as possible. She is also hoping to go on and play college basketball somewhere when she is done with high school. Robinson is planning on going to a junior college for two years to work her way up to play division one college basketball after high school. “I will miss playing with my teammates. We had a great summer together. Our chemistry is awesome on the court,” Robinson said.