EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's girls basketball team has been on the cusp of a IHSA Class 4A state tournament berth so many times and this year the goal is to make it to Redbird Arena in Normal.
The team that defeated Edwardsville six times of the last nine Supersectional games EHS has played in went on to win the state championship, including Lisle Benet Academy last season.
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With four returning starters from last year's 30-2 team that reached the Bloomington Supersectional at Illinois Wesleyan, Edwardsville believes that the potential is there for greatness.
“We're excited to get to play on Friday,” Blade said about the Tigers, who open their season this weekend with a tournament at Springfield Southeast. “They've worked hard the last three weeks and it'll be time to see where we're at and we'll find out with four games (in the tournament). We'll take it one game at a time and see where we're at Thanksgiving and then we get into (the Southwestern) conference; it's going to be a tough road even through the conference.
“Postseason's a long way away with the long season.”
Blade said coming so close, yet so far, to the state tournament is a motivating factor for the Tigers. “It's burning into them a little bit to losing that super by two and having that lead in the fourth quarter,” Blade said. “That's something, with four returning starters, something we can mention and light a fire every once in a while.
“But they've worked really hard and they understand the concept of one game at a time; we have to get better, we can't sit on what we did last year and expect to do the same thing, because that's not how it works.”
The four returning starters include seniors Makenzie Silvey and Criste'on Waters and juniors Rachel Pranger and Kate Martin. Silvey averaged 16.3 points per game last season, with Pranger right behind at 16.1 PPG; Martin had a 11.6 PPG average and Waters averaged 10.7 PPG.
“I think we have a lot of potential this year, and if we continue to work hard in practice, we should hopefully be successful on the court this year,” Silvey said. “We're excited to get it going and play some new teams this year; hopefully, we'll learn a lot as we go.
“We're focusing on the Thanksgiving tournament we're about to play.”
The Tiger schedule has undergone some changes this year; EHS will be heading to a holiday tournament in the Chicago area and will meet Hazelwood Central and Chicago Whitney Young in a pair of shootouts. “We've toughened (the schedule) up a bit and we'll see,” Blade said. “It'll be good challenges to get us ready for the postseason.”
Experience will play a key role in this year's edition of the Tigers. “We've been young the last few years,” Blade said, “and graduating just one last year; we only have three seniors (Waters, Silvey and Jasmine Bishop), so we're still kind of young, but the juniors have good-quality experience and we've got some young kids who are doing a good job in practice; I'm excited to see them in the middle of the competition.”
Blade is expecting some difficult challenges from the SWC teams. “Belleville West will be good again,” Blade said. “O'Fallon will be good, Collinsville graduated a lot but they'll have some good experience back; Belleville East is always athletic and quick and they can shoot the three this year.
“It's going to be good all the way around. It's a physical conference with very good athletes in it and some good coaches, so it makes for good games.”
