With the approaching start of basketball season, the Lady Cats are making strides to make this year great.

  The team practiced during the summer and also started conditioning two weeks before practice officially started on Oct. 31.

  “We did a lot more summer activities this year that included shoot-outs, scrimmages and bringing in the Midwest Elite Basketball (MEB) Training Camps,” assistant coach Alison Durst said. “MEB is where college coaches come to your school and host a team camp based on your coaching philosophies and expectations.”

  This year, the team plans to build on the foundations that were laid in previous years as well as on coming together as a team to improve with each other.

  “We have to take all those individual skills that we got better at this summer and get the players to work together as a unit to make us successful as a team,” head coach Cody Morgan said.

  The team also says that this season the overall goal is not only to win games but to improve together and help each other out.

  “My goals for this season are to win more games of course, but also to become a better player and help the underclassmen to become better players to improve our program in years to come,” senior post Mackenzie Bauer said.

  “Our number one goal is to come together as a group for one collective purpose, to be a great team. If we can reach this goal, our other goals will be easy to achieve,” Morgan said.

  Both coaches are ready for the upcoming season and believe it should harbor some exciting moments during games.

  “I anticipate for this season to be a good one.  This group of girls works hard and knows what we expect of them,” Durst said.

  “This is going to be an exciting team to watch once we put it all together. We have smart group with good basketball IQ’s, we are faster and more athletic than we have been in a while. Combine that with the style we like to play and the pace we like to play at it should make for some exciting games,” Morgan said.

 The team started their season with a jamboree in Lakeland where they came out with two losses to Lakeland and Macks Creek.