Girls varsity basketball looks to make a statement in the upcoming season

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After a heartbreaking end to last year’s season due to the sudden surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the girls varsity basketball team is looking to make a statement and improve on last year’s remarkable OK White conference championship season.

Last season, the Lady Rangers lost in a tough matchup to the Rockford Rams in the state’s district semi-final round 49-41. The team has since been working hard and have been very motivated to perform very well this season.

“Losing to Rockford last year was a wake-up call for us,” senior captain Zoe Lipke said. “We knew that they were good. We nearly came back in the second half of that game, and seeing that we came back from such a big deficit I think showed us that we were better than we thought.”

With the loss of some incredible senior players this year, the Rangers still bring back some of their amazing talents from last year. Joining with Zoe again this year in the backcourt is Michigan State commit and junior Theryn Hallock. These two have been a deadly duo since starting with each other in their first season together. If that’s not enough, the Rangers have a lot of help in the frontcourt and on the defensive side of the ball with seniors Brittney Probst and Ava Metaj, who bring the post-game on the block along with defense in the low post.

“[Brittney and Ava] are absolutley incredible defenders,” coach Kristina Prins said. “Their confidence has risen in the past few years to the point where they can both dominate the game from both sides of the floor.”

Along with a lot of returning players for the Lady Rangers, freshman Ashtyn Scarlato has come up to the varsity level in her first year as a high school basketball player as she looks to be a big difference off the bench for the girls.

“(Ashtyn) is a feisty girl”, Prins said, “she will be huge for us on the boards this year. I think as she progresses along throughout the season, she can become a huge asset and a game-changer to the team.”

With all of the pieces coming together, the Lady Rangers look to go on a huge run this year in a tough OK White conference. To start off the year, the Lady Rangers will face an always tough Northview team and then turn right around to face a tough Forest Hills Northern Huskies team that the Rangers lost to twice last year. After that, they will face Byron Center and Grand Rapids Christian to put an end to a tough first half of the season.

“I would say one of our main goals this year is to beat FHN,” Zoe said, “We really want to set the tone this year, and winning against FHN would be a game-changer for our season. Along with this, we want to take advantage of every opportunity we get this year because who knows what the season will look like in the next two weeks.”

The Lady Rangers will start their very fast season with a home game against Northview on Wednesday, February 10th at 7 PM, and then turn right around to play the Huskies of Forest Hills Northern at FHN.