Despite a number of injuries, girls basketball looks to have a successful showing in the IHSA regionals.

“It’s all about preparation, I’m kinda big on that,” coach Brittanny Johnson said. “Being prepared for games, being able to get to the gym on their own, working on their game outside of practice, watching extra film to see what a team does well, and what they don’t do well.”

Although regionals are a big part of the season, the team doesn’t plan on treating these series of games any differently than the others they’ve played before.

“It’s important that we don’t look too far ahead, so our mindset is to take it one game at a time,” Johnson said.

While getting over an injury, senior SyAnn Holmes has been working on keeping everyone’s spirits high.

“As a leader of the team I just try to make sure that everyone is pushing themselves to be the best players they can be,” Holmes said. “I’ve also been working on trying to point out more of the positive things that we do as a team, that’s actually something we’ve all been working on.”

Positivity has been a challenge for the team because of the amount of injuries there have been this season which has created challenges for both the offense and the defense.

“For majority of our season we were missing our best post player, Ambrea Gentle, and that was very challenging for us,” Holmes said. “We also lost one of our best shooters, Delaney Brooks, for awhile and that really hurt us in games when we needed someone to step up and hit shots.”

Junior Kayla Henning recently started to play again after recovering from an ACL tear. Not only has she had to strengthen her body again, she has been working on strengthening her mentality after sitting on the sideline for so long.

“When I first came back and didn’t have that same athleticism it was tough but it required me to adjust my game,” Henning said. “Now that I am getting my bounce back, I’ve become a smarter player with close to the same athleticism.”

Henning isn’t the only one that has been putting in the time and energy to improve. The whole team is constantly conditioning and supporting each other.

“In practice we challenge each other everyday and after we reflect on what we can improve on,” junior Tyler Mayne said.

The first regionals game will be on Tuesday Feb. 12 at 4 p.m. at Maine South and the team is more than ready for whichever team they are assigned to play against.

“I think we will win regionals and I don’t believe there is a team in the state that we can’t beat when we are at our best so I’m really confident in our ability to get down state,” Henning said.