The Manhattan High School girls basketball team fell 30-43 at Washburn Rural on March 1, drawing the season to a close in the first round of SubState. 

Senior Avery Larson led MHS in scoring with 12 points and senior Saylor Salmans contributed four points, but no other player scored over three points. The ball couldn’t find the basket for the Lady Indians, who shot 24% (12 for 49) from the field. 

“We just couldn’t get shots to fall,” head coach Scott Mall said. “If we would have shot our normal shooting percentages, it would have been an even ballgame, but when you shoot [24%] it’s just hard to win.”

MHS finishes the season with an overall record of 7-14, three of the losses at the hands of the reigning state champions, Washburn Rural. 

“I really thought we could take Washburn,” Salmans said. “We’d been practicing different strategies and we had a really close game with them last time that we definitely could have won, so we just had a really positive and ready-to-win mindset.” 

The loss led to an emotional goodbye in the locker room after the game.

“That was the last time that all of us were going to play with each other,” senior Destiny Yates said. “Half of these girls I grew up playing basketball with, and the other half, the freshmen, are just getting started. It feels like we were on our way to greatness, but it was cut short because of our loss.”

Regardless, the team is proud of its perseverance and determination throughout a season marked by adversity, according to Yates. 

“What we’re trying to leave is just a positive mark on the program,” Yates said. “And making sure people remember us not just by scoring or breaking records or anything but just by our attitude towards the game, towards our coaches, our fans and obviously our teammates, too.”