Lone Tree’s freshmen had a tough introduction to postseason basketball in a 49-20 loss at English Valleys on Thursday. 

The Lady Lions played the last three weeks of the season without injured senior Maddie McCullough, making it a challenge for Lone Tree (7-16) to handle the Bears’ (19-3) defensive pressure. 

But it did provide an opportunity for some younger players to gain some experience. 

“I know it was rough at times for them, but I think they’ve shown a lot of potential and a lot of poise in some close game scenarios,” Lone Tree coach Ryan Shelman said. 

“We’ve had a saying this year, ‘either we’re winning or we’re learning,’ and even in the wins that we’ve had, we’ve still done quite a bit of maturing, and getting better.”

Lone Tree finished its conference schedule with back to back wins over Columbus and Hillcrest before falling to WACO in the SEISC Shootout. Freshmen Rylee Shield, Cate Sexton and Vivan Zaruba have all seen significant minutes this season

“Every practice has been beneficial for us and every game has been beneficial for us,” Shelman said.  “The opportunities to get some of those girls in some situations as freshmen and sophomores, hopefully by the time they’re juniors and seniors, it’s going to pay dividends for us in the long run.”

The Lady Lions fell behind 6-0 in the first quarter, but Sexton went coast-to-coast with the basketball to cut the Bears lead to 8-4 heading into the second quarter. 

English Valleys picked things up offensively in the second quarter and led 21-9 at the half. Zaruba scored Lone Tree’s first points of the second half with a steal and score.

Rylee Shield had four rebounds on Thursday and led all Lone Tree freshmen with 48 total points this year. 

The Lions will return two of their top three scorers next year in junior Riley Krueger and sophomore Avery Lisk. Both averaged over five points and two steals per game. Lisk scored a career-high 16 points in Lone Tree’s 53-35 win over Columbus on February 1. 

Lone Tree will miss its five seniors: McCullough, Chloe Mills, Kinley Hayes, Dani Pettitt, and Kasey Chown, who led the team with seven points on Thursday and led Lone Tree with 292 points over the season. 

“Our seniors and our lone junior this year, Riley Krueger, they’ve done a great job of helping the other girls and being understanding of them. It’s been a pleasure to coach these girls this year. They get along. We don’t have a whole lot of team drama or things like that.”

The Lions finished the season with all of its seniors, minus the injured McCullough, on the court together one last time. 

“That was a great moment for them to be able to finish out the year with those four on the floor,” Shelman said.

Chown led the Lady Lions in rebounding all four years and finished her career with a Lone Tree  record 684 rebounds, despite playing in just 13 games last year due to the pandemic. 

“She was kind of our silent leader this year, she did it by example,” Shelman said about Chown. "And the girls really respected her for that. She was really willing to work with those younger girls. 

“In the summer, she hardly ever missed a workout. She hardly ever missed a weight session. She was always there. She plays a lot of minutes for us, she was kind of an Ironman. And she does some things for us that will be missed for sure.”