Daily Sitka Sentinel

Lady Braves Finish Season With Chins Up

By ABIGAIL BLISS
Sentinel Staff Writer
    The Mt. Edgecumbe High School girls basketball team set out for the Region V tournament in Ketchikan this past weekend with the sole goal of enjoying the experience. Led by the four remaining upperclassmen who started the season on the varsity squad, and tenacious head coach Kathy Forrester, the Braves achieved that aim and finished on a high note.
    The Braves fell twice to their hometown rivals, the Sitka High Wolves, losing 54-30 on Thursday and 58-16 on Friday. The tournament capped off a tumultuous season for the Braves, who lost four starting players for disciplinary reasons just as they were gaining their footing in early February.
    Since then, illness and injury have felled a few other girls, forcing Forrester to bring a bevy of J.V. players up to the varsity squad. The MEHS team that competed at the regional tournament was ultimately composed of four players who had started the season at the varsity level – seniors Danielle Go and Tessa Coopchiak, and juniors Leticia Skaflestad and Brystel Charlie – and six who were brought up to fill out the team.
    But Forrester said she prefers to focus on the positive.
    “I prefer to talk about just the four upperclassmen that finished the season,” she said. “They may not have finished as champions of the Southeast tournament, but certainly in life.”
    That core contingent had raked in the accolades by the end of the season. Coopchiak and Go were named to the all-academic roster; Go and Kennedy Stumpf, who sat out the Region V tournament due to illness, were recognized with sportsmanship awards; and Go and Charlie were named to the all-conference team.
    Forrester said it was the four girls’ enduring positive attitude, however, that made her most proud of their performance.
    When they found themselves playing beside new teammates halfway through the season, she said, “they opened their arms and their hearts to work with these girls.”
    When they found themselves heading into the homestretch of the last high school game down by a significant margin, she said, “they played it out until the last buzzer.”
    Forrester recalled one moment in the Braves’ final game of the season when she asked those four players if they needed a sub, and they decided to stay in the game and stick out the loss.
    “My heart is so strong for them,” she said. “They did not give up. Not at all.”
    Despite the Braves’ losses, Forrester said, players described the team as the “most positive they’ve ever finished the season with” and the trip to Ketchikan as a highlight of the season.
    “When I have seniors saying that this is the best trip they’ve ever been on, that makes my heart glad for them,” she said.
    Looking ahead to next year, Forrester was able to find the silver lining of the Braves’ rocky season: many younger players were able to get playing time as they stepped into starters’ shoes, enabling them to start the next season with experience under their belt.
    “We’re losing two seniors, but everybody else is coming back, hopefully,” Forrester said. “Any experience is good.”