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Revamped Dexter, Notre Dame GBB squads to battle in SEMO semis
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Veteran Dexter High School girl's basketball coach Eric Sitze watches his team compete on Monday against Kennett in the opening round of the SEMO Conference Tournament at Notre Dame High School.
Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com
If veteran girl’s high school basketball coaches Eric Sitze and Kirk Boeller are in search of sympathy as this season gets underway, they can lean on each other for a friendly ear when the two meet tonight in the SEMO Conference Tournament championship semifinals.
Sitze’s Dexter squad is the No. 6 seed and will face Boeller’s Notre Dame team, which is the No. 3 seed, at Notre Dame at 8 p.m.
Top-seed Jackson (3-0) will play No. 4-seed Sikeston (1-2) at 6:30 p.m. in the other championship semifinal game.
Sitze’s very inexperienced group rallied on Monday to beat Kennett 58-55, which was impressive given that the Bearcats return just one starter (senior guard Kate Nichols) from last season.
The Bearcats (1-0) had a pair of regulars elect not to play, which handcuffed Sitze a bit.
“We lost a lot of girls (five) from last year,” Sitze said.
Boeller won’t want to hear that from Sitze. Boeller had three sophomore athletes earn spots on the First Team All-SEMO Conference Team last spring after the Bulldogs won 20 games and the MSHSAA Class 4 District 1 championship, and all three players are competing elsewhere this season.
“I've been waiting since the beginning of November for that first game,” Boeller told Semoball.com following his team’s season-opening win on Monday over Cape Central. “I just wanted to get it out of the way.
“I had a couple of nervous girls there tonight. It was nice to see what we were going to look like.”
For Sitze, he had to deal with another stroke of poor luck, as sophomore forward Mauriana Menley is out for a couple of weeks with a severely sprained ankle.
Sitze had high expectations for Menley, who is nearly six feet in length.
“She will definitely play,” Sitze said in the preseason of Menley. “She is our No. 2 option (inside), for sure.
“I think people will be impressed with what they see from (Menley) this year. She has improved a lot and had a really good summer.”
Sitze did get a pleasant surprise from senior guard Kenady Krapf in his team’s win over the Indians.
Krapf, who hasn’t played competitive basketball since her freshman season, buried four 3-pointers for 12 points in the win.
“We know that she can shoot it,” Sitze said. “That is one of her strengths and that is what she is going to have to do for us this year.
“I was a little surprised because it was her first game, but not really surprised because that is some of our strategy is trying to get her open looks.”
The two winning teams from tonight’s semifinals will meet for the tournament championship on Friday at 8 p.m. with tonight’s losing squads playing for third place on Friday at 6:30 p.m.