From highs to lows, Broncos close as a team

In his season preview, Wauneta-Palisade Girls’ Basketball Head Coach Matt Cox said he hoped his team’s summer experiences on the basketball court would elevate his program during the school year.
To fans in the stands, the signs of a more mature team were visible for most of the season.
Wauneta-Palisade started the season 6-2 before two losses at the Arapahoe tournament.
The Broncos rolled into the RPAC tournament on a five-game winning streak, but a loss at home to Wallace ended WP’s tournament run in the semifinals.
Cox said it was the low point of the season, but it taught WP something, which took us to the highest point of the season, a seven-game winning streak to the district final.
“It was by far our most challenging stretch of the year, lots of high caliber competition. Our motto became, ‘play to win, don’t play not to lose’,” Cox said.
After the Broncos became too conservative in the Wallace loss, Cox said they learned from it.
“The lesson was crucial in the late season running of the table that took us too that district final,” Cox said.
“If anyone watched our last three wins of the year, we were fierce at the end of the games with our rebounding, defense, ball security, and shot selection,” Cox said, adding, he credits that to the Wallace conference tournament loss.
Wauneta-Palisade was the seventh seed in the Class D2 district seedings but lost to Diller-Odell.
Senior Alexa Sandman was second in scoring and assists for WP.
Cox loved Sandman’s consistency this season.
“She wasn’t the most vocal leader, it’s not her style. She was fabulous when we needed a bucket or a rebound,” Cox said, adding Sandman has a great sense of the game, and spent a lot of time improving over the last year.
“She had a tremendous senior year, capped off with a great final game,” Cox said.
In a teary locker room after the Wauneta-Palisade’s district loss, Cox said talk was how big Sandman’s shoes are and how WP is going to fill them.
“There’s a visible hole in our team now, and it will be impossible to keep playing the way I want to play, if someone doesn’t step up in the off season and put in the work to fill it,” Cox said.
Wauneta-Palisade had a strong group of underclassman.
Junior Chloe Stehno was second in rebounding, 8.2 per game, and averaged 9.3 points per game, while being second on the team with 59 steals.
Junior Cali Cox had 81 assists and 70 steal on the season.
Sophomores GraCee Goings and Peyton Cox rounded out the starting lineup.
P. Cox averaged a double-double  on the season, 16.4 points and 12.8 rebounds per game. P. Cox also had a team-high 46 blocks. P. Cox’s rebound totals puts her right near the top of Nebraska’s best rebounders.
Goings had 50 assists and 55 steals on the year.
Junior Halle Bardsley and freshman Izzy Stehno each played in at least 20 games, while junior Peyton Vrbas played in 17 games before being sidelined by an injury.
Cox said his favorite thing from this season was how close these girls are, as a whole, from the freshman to the team’s only senior, Sandman.  
“They all loved each other so much and had a blast everywhere they went,” Cox said, adding it’s hard to get them to understand that the wins and losses fade after time but the memories will last forever.