Panther seniors write final chapter

It’s finally their time.

Five seniors on the Creston girls basketball team have literally grown up on the job as varsity players since they entered high school. Some were called on early as freshmen, after an undefeated middle school career, and the rest were varsity regulars by sophomores.

There were growing pains in adjusting to the size and speed of varsity basketball wars in the Hawkeye Ten Conference. Now, eighth-year coach Tony Neubauer hopes all of that experience will pay off in winning basketball.

“These girls are great kids and they didn’t get to have the normal progression,” Neubauer said. “A lot of times girls come into high school and play freshman and JV ball before varsity. I had to use them right away. Hollynn (Rieck) and Kaldey (Bailey) are five inches taller than when we played them as freshmen. They had to grow up in a hurry. Hopefully all of that time (on varsity) will pay off.”

Ella Turner became a starter midway through her freshman year. Bailey and Rieck played a lot as freshmen. With the presence of Doryn Paup, now a player at Simpson College, post players Brynn Tussey and Braylee Pokorny weren’t varsity regulars quite as early, but quickly advanced to that level as sophomores.

After many of this year’s players were part of Creston’s best volleyball team in a decade, Neubauer hopes for a return to winning ways this season, which begins in a 5:30 p.m, varsity home game Friday against Des Moines Hoover.

The past three seasons have ended with six, six and seven wins after four straight winning campaigns of 11-10, 14-10, 14-7 and 12-10 beginning in 2019. Despite a similar record to the year before, Neubauer said progress was shown last year.

“Last year we finished with one senior, Ady Morrison, after Ava Adamson got hurt,” Neubauer said. “They closed the gap on a lot of teams. Teams that had beaten us by 30 beat us by 10. We had a really nice win at Clarinda. A good win at Glenwood. The only team in the conference that kind of hammered us last year as St. Albert, but they were (1A) state champions. Hopefully this year the shooting gets better and we have a chance to have a pretty good year. These girls showed a lot of growth in volleyball. I thought coach (Naomi) Sharp did a great job with them in volleyball and they showed the ability to scrap back after falling behind.”

Bailey earned second team All-Hawkeye Ten honors as a junior as Creston’s scoring leader at 18.1 points per game. She also averaged 4.6 steals per game in becoming the program’s all-time steals leader with one season left.

“If she stays healthy, Kadley should reach 1,000 career points. She’s at 759 right now,” Neubauer said. “She’s really tough at the top of our press. She’s deceptively long, with great anticipation. Obviously, she’s the main scorer, but the strength of this senior class is as a whole. They all bring different things to the table. Ella (7.3 average) and Brynn (6.7) were our next scorers, but anyone can be the girl that steps up and gives us 10 to 12 points on a given night.”

This is a group that has learned to play without having a tall presence inside. Everyone on the roster is between 5-5 and 5-9. Brynn Tussey, Pokorny and Turner are typically shorter than their opponents around the basket. Neubauer hopes athleticism, and strong rebounding by guards Rieck and Bailey, will help offset the size disadvantage.

“Our defense still predicates our offense,” said Neubauer, assisted again this year by Bryant McCabe and Scott Wagner. “We have to rebound and get out and run. That’s our best basketball, in transition. But we also have to execute in the half court. We got decent shots last year, but didn’t shoot well (34%) from the field. We’ve had kids put a lot of time in shooting so we’re hopeful. It sounds really simple, but if we just put the ball in the basket, we’ll be OK this year.”

The five seniors can’t do it alone, however, and Neubauer said there are younger players ready to provide depth at the varsity level. Top candidates early in the season are junior forward Hope Henderson, sophomore guard Jensan Tussey and sophomore forward Marlee Stalker. Henderson and Tussey got some varsity duty a year ago besides primarily playing in JV games. The Panther JV1 team was 13-5 last year and the JV2 team was 7-2.

Hawkeye Ten

St. Albert won its first girls state basketball championship last year in overtime over Newell-Fonda, and sailed to the Hawkeye Ten title at 10-0 with a 25-1 overall record. The rest of the top five was Shenandoah (8-2), Harlan (7-3), Atlantic (7-3) and Lewis Central (7-3). All of those teams won at least 18 games overall.

Creston tied for sixth in the league with Clarinda and Kuemper Catholic at 4-6 while going 7-15 overall.

All-conference players Avah Underwood and Maura Ryan return for St. Albert, making the Saintes a top contender again in the league.

“St. Albert is the best team in my eyes, then after that you can roll the dice,” Neubauer said. “Clarinda will probably be ranked, and we probably return more and that’s a team we split with. LC will be athletic. Kuemper will be solid. Atlantic lost (Paytn) Harter but they have some good players back, and they had a good freshman playing volleyball. Harlan lost two bigs, but they’ll be fine. Shenandoah has a good guard back. We want to be at least .500 in the conference and stack as many wins as possible, playing our best basketball at the end.”

Creston is expected to compete in Class 3A regional play this year after several seasons in 4A.

“Everybody in our conference is 3A except Red Oak in 2A, St. Albert in 1A and Harlan, Denison, Glenwood and Lewis Central in 4A,” Neubauer said.

Roster

Seniors — Kadley Bailey (5-7), Hollynn Rieck (5-7), Braylee Pokorny (5-9), Ella Turner (5-6), Brynn Tussey (5-8).

Juniors — Kinzley Downing (5-9), Hope Henderson (5-8).

Sophomores — Marlee Stalker (5-7), Jensan Tussey (5-5).

Freshmen — Bentleigh Collier (5-8), Nevaeh Adamson (5-2), Daphne Hoepker (5-5), Chloe Thomson (5-9), Payton Veitz (5-7).