For the fourth time in six years, the Wauneta-Palisade girls’ basketball team capped its season with a trip to the state tournament.
    “I think we had a season that the girls can look back on and be extremely proud of,” said WP Head Coach Matt Cox. “The highlight of the season was definitely the trip to Lincoln for the state basketball tournament, the whole situation was strange, but it is one I’ll remember forever.”
    The trip was thanks to a successful season which earned WP a wild card berth and number four seed.
    Two wins over Class D1 state qualifier Hitchcock County figured largely into WP’s wildcard. Other big wins for the Broncos included victories over Maywood/Hayes Center and Class C2 Sutherland. WP was narrowly defeated by Dundy County-Stratton in January.
    Cox said he wished his team would have played better in the RPAC tournament. WP lost games to MHC and Hitchcock County.
    “That MHC game was just a lot of chaos and I didn’t feel like I had prepared the girls for it very well,” Cox said. “I was disappointed, and the girls were too, so we tried some different things against Hitchcock County in the consolation round and it did not go well!”
    The experience made the team better in the end.
    “I learned a lot about the team and some of the things we needed to work on to get better and finish the season strong, so in the long run it worked out pretty well,” Cox said.
    It nearly wasn’t enough for WP, however, when the Broncos lost in the subdistrict final to MHC. Cox called it the low point of the season.
    “We missed too many free throws in the second half, and just couldn’t overcome it in the end,” he said. “It was also one of the best games in which I’ve been involved, in along time. The basketball being played was really good for both teams involved, and we fought the whole way. We just ended up short on the scoreboard in the end.”
    WP was led this season by seven seniors. Cox said it’s been fun for him to watch the group mature into really good basketball players, and more importantly, really good, high character role models for the younger girls.
    “I’ve been really impressed with their focus for the last three years, and it translates into their personal lives as well,” said Cox. “For the most part they all know what they want to do as a career, and some of them have already started doing things that will get them to where they want to be. There’s been a lot of seniors, at this point in their lives, that are just ready to go to college, take some generals and see where that leads them. Most of these girls already have the end goal in mind and have a plan on how to get there, and that it is not only pretty rare, but also impressive!”
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