Undefeated doesn’t tell the whole story.
It’s easy to look at a schedule and a record to decide on the abilities of a team, but there is more to the Castlewood Warriors than their record says. Even if their record says a lot.
“We have a good group of girls that work really hard,” Head Coach Leslie Tvedt said. “They get along on the court even when you’re down, there have been times when we’re down and we can get through that. We just have some good chemistry.”
And it’s that never quite attitude that has lead the Warriors to some big wins this season, including against Class A State Qualifier Hamlin on December 19th (50-48), a great Flandreau team on January 5th (67-53), and an excellent Florence/Henry team on February 9th (63-49).
“Obviously the Hamlin game was really exciting; it was intensely close and early in the season,” Tvedt said of the big victories. “Against Flandreau, we played some good basketball. Waubay/Summit was a good team and we played some great games those nights.”
“Some games we were just really ready.”
But even with an undefeated record, Castlewood still had to overcome setbacks in games like any other team.
“We had times when we didn’t play the best we could. Even the week when we played De Smet the first time, we weren’t playing good basketball that week.”
However, the great team chemistry Tvedt spoke about earlier helped the Warriors prevail everytime. And while other Class B teams like Corsica-Stickney and White River were talked about as favorites, the Warriors quietly worked their way to a 19-0 record and a #1 seed in the State Tournament, paying no mind to talk.
“We just talk about one game at a time and work on the opponent at hand. We don’t bring a lot of attention to the undefeated-ness,” Tvedt said.
Now the Warriors will have to prepare for a familiar foe, as they face Waverly-South Shore in the first round of the State Tournament. The Warriors won the matchup 73-64 back on February 12th and Coach Tvedt thinks the game plan from the first matchup will lead to success.
“We will probably play pretty similar to the first time. They play man, they play zone, we will be prepared for whatever they throw at us. Hopefully we can get some more rebounds.”
Castlewood will open the Class B Tournament at noon on Thursday in Huron. Hanson and Ethan will be the second matchup in Session 1.
This article is part of our new series on State Tournament Previews. To
