“They’ll do whatever they have to win”

The Watonga girls basketball team is playing in the area round of the Class 2A state playoffs after an exciting, topsyturvy week of regional playoffs.

After winning the district championship 61-23 over Crescent, the Lady Eagles faced Luther in the first round of regional play. They dropped a close game, 50-47, that put the girls in the consolation bracket in win-or-go home mode.

In game two against Fairview, Natalie Walker’s last secondbuzzer beater 3-pointer lifted the girls to a 45-44 win. Watonga then punched its ticket to Area with a 37-20 win over Sayre in the Consolation B bracket finale.

The Republican sat down with coach Lauren Campo to talk about the playoffs and what’s ahead in the area round, which starts Thursday.

Q: So your team had a pretty good run there at the regionals.

A: Yes, we did. We lost in the first round to Luther, and then we came back and won two against Fairview and Sayre.

Q: Is this what you expected from your team to make the Area around or was this a good surprise for you?

A: I thought we were capable. In the past couple of years, we've been very capable, just haven't quite gotten past the hump, but we set our goals on the state tournament this year. The girls have just absolutely worked through a ton of adversity to get where we're at now. I'm sure you're aware, but we didn't get to start our season until January, and we played most of our games in the month of January. We battled through some COVID issues and injuries. We've had quite the interesting year, just like everybody else, but they never lost sight of that goal. And we're certainly not finished.

Q: So talk about Natalie’s last-second buzzer beater that propelled you past Fairview and let you keep playing. That was quite an exciting play. Is that how you drew that one up?

A: Well, I actually had my freshmen point guard Aubrey Bridges, and the play was actually ran for her. We’d run that play twice already, and in the game and I called the reverse. And she didn't think it was there so she went ahead and ran just the regular play. She wasn't open. And I told her if she wasn't open to go ahead and find our sophomore, Natalie Walker. And she was able to find her. And Natalie somehow got that shot up and it went in. Q: When we saw that

Q: When we saw that buzzer-beater, it reminded us of all those plays that you see on ESPN, where the kids are making those last-minute shots. That was pretty exciting.

A: Oh, absolutely. We were stoked. She has struggled a little bit on and off with confidence and for her to step up and hit that shot really kind of propelled her. She ended up having 25 points in that game. It was definitely exciting. We needed that to give us that little boost in the next game.

Q: Were you worried about a let down after that exciting finish, or did you think your team would be able to handle the final game and advance?

A: Playing Fairview at Fairview is always tough. And we knew that going in, it was going to be a close game, a tough game. I was more worried physically. We had a very, very physical game with Luther over at Morrison and then, you know, to have to play a very, very close game again on Friday going into Saturday, that was my primary concern. It's our legs. Are we going to be able to handle it because we full-court pressure most of the game in most games. A lot of teams don't do that. So our legs were definitely going to be more tired than Sayre’s legs. So that was my main worry. I knew that we could handle their zone pressure and things like that. We were able to still pressure them and get some turnovers and come out with the win.

Q: So anytime you lose that first game in tournament play and have to come up through consolation bracket, it's a tough haul. Speak to that a little bit from your team's point of view.

A: I mean, it’s not only physically tough, to win or to lose a close first game, but mentally, it's you lose that first game and you start questioning a little bit. Are we actually good enough? Or can we actually do this? Losing a close one is always hard. And then winning, I think, winning another close when there's always that kind of doubt going into the third game, and you saw that on the offensive end of things, the first half against Sayre. We missed some easy layups and were just kind of playing a little bit tight in the first half. I told them, it's going to start with defense. We need to be defensively strong, get some easy layups after a steal. We came out half and we did that and we were able to get rolling. It’s, physically tough, but also mentally tough to lose the first one and then have to come back and play two really tough teams.

Q: So what do you think about Area coming up? How can your team be successful? A: The first game is proba

A: The first game is probably going to be our biggest test of the year thus far. I think that we we've got Stroud. And they're really a really solid team. We’re going to have to play well. But we're fully capable of beating Stroud. Then we would have the winner of Mound or Luther. And we are more than capable to beat Luther. We missed 19 free throws and lost to them by three. If we can get past this first round, I think that we've got a good shot to play in that area consolation and go to state

Q: Do you want to highlight a couple of the girls in their play from the regional tournament?

A: All of our starters play played well. Aubrey Bridges, our freshman point guard. She's always a go-to on offense. Natalie Walker, of course, played well. Jocelyn Turney is a good scorer for us. Landri Hussey on the defensive end is really strong. She definitely was a big factor in. Kiyla Cooper, she's our post girl. She gets a lot of points in transition for us.

Coming off the bench, we have Abby Boekman. She's a senior and does a great job for us on defense. I could talk all day about everybody, and everybody has their role and does a great job.

Q: You kind of touched on it already, but just talk about this whole COVID-19 situation this year. I mean, you started the season late, you had all those postponements at the end of the season. Maybe you only got two games in before districts. Just how challenging was it for the girls?

A: Well, it hit our seniors the hardest. We would have Zoom meetings and work outs over Zoom. It was just really hard for them to get through thinking this, this is my senior year. These are games that I'll never get back. We lost a lot of home games, especially that they didn't get to play in front of their home crowd was just really hard for them.

We didn't really get to have a senior night. We were able to host the district game, which kind of helped the situation. We kind of treated that like senior night. I started all my seniors and told the girls, ‘Let's go get them a wn on their last home game here.’

There’s a big mental aspect of when are we going to get to play again? Are we going to get to play again? And just that fear of never knowing, is this going to be our last game that we get to play? I think that they were very resilient and fought through a lot of that adversity. Like you said, we played one game in February before playoffs. And that was another really tough thing to get through. You can only practice that many days in a row, and then you're getting tired of practice and you want to play, but then you're nervous and things like that. I think that they've handled it really well and have been able to win games that we should win.

Q: Anything else you think people should know about your team and what they accomplished?

A: This is one of the most hardworking teams I've ever coached. You know, they’re there at 6:30 in the morning for workouts for to lift weights, to shoot, to get shots up. And, that's all voluntary. They come up on their own and they, and they do that. They just want to get better. They've got a real hunger to win, and they're going to do whatever it takes to do so.