The beginning of the Manhattan High girls basketball team’s loss to Hayden last Friday bore a stark difference from the ending.

That is, at least to junior Gigi McAtee, who totaled 12 points in the contest.

“We had a lot of fire. We were really excited for the Hayden game,” she said. “We really wanted to win, and there was a lot of motivation and a lot of hype for the game.”

It likely didn’t end with the same inspiration, though: the 63-57 loss was the Lady Indians’ third straight, securing MHS’ fall from the league title discussion.

And though Manhattan will not get a shot at the league championship after claiming it a year ago, it does get a chance at a win Tuesday. The Lady Indians host the Lady Jays on senior night Tuesday, a club MHS trounced 63-27 in the teams’ first meeting of the season in December.

Junction City stands at 1-10 in league play and 2-16 overall on the season, and with its bottom dwelling in the league standings, senior Madison Mittie hopes the game will provide a sigh of relief for her team.

“It’s nice. I think it’ll make us happier; coach [Scott] Mall a little happier,” Mittie said. “We’ll get more excited to go into sub-state week.”

The game is also senior night for the Lady Indians’ trio of seniors: Mittie, Tarrah Bammes and Mackenzie Gwinner.

“I think it’ll be a little emotional for us,” Mittie said. “But I think we’re really excited and we really want to give it our all tomorrow.”

But for the non-seniors, the approach will be different. For McAtee, it will be a matter of soaking up the time before she enters her own senior campaign for the sake of this year’s seniors.

“Every year, it’s like, freshman, sophomore, junior. It’s like, ‘all right, I’ve got another year; I’ve got more years.’ And as I get closer to senior year, I realize they don’t have that,” McAtee said. “And so I can’t keep making excuses, because I want it to be their best season they can have.”