Red Hawks hope to ride roster continuity to progress

Coming off a two-win season, the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau girls basketball team knows there is plenty of work to be done to get to the level of competitiveness they would like. One major boost for the program? The Red Hawks lost only one senior to graduation from last spring.

Though the program as a whole is still young and relatively light on experience at some positions, G-E-T is afforded a fairly high level of roster continuity as they enter the 2025-26 season.

Halene DeJager was the lone senior on last year’s roster and was a critical guard who helped run the offense. However, Lexi James, the Red Hawks’ leading scorer at 6.9 points per game last season, returns for her senior season and will provide a good dose of experience in the frontcourt.

“Lexi James, who’s been on varsity for a few years now, knows the offense well,” said John Schmidtknecht, who enters his third season as G-E-T head coach. “She kind of takes control of the offense while we’re out there. It kind of puts everything together for us. So, we’re excited for that.”

In the backcourt, Schmidtknecht pointed to sophomores Alexis Ouellette and Brookelynn Keller as a pair of younger players who he expects to step into significant roles at guard.

The Red Hawks also return juniors Sami Filla, Joshlyn Lunsford and Ava Lightfoot, who all have seen some level of varsity of action since they were freshmen and will take on increased responsibilities as they move to upperclassmen status.

The size of the roster is something Schmidtknecht hopes his team can use to their advantage as the season progresses.

“I think some of our strengths are going to be we do have a big lineup. We got plenty of posts this year from our freshmen to our seniors,” Schmidtknecht said. “And we also got a load of guards that we could go quick too if we need. So, I think that’s going to be a strength for us, depending who we play.”

In terms of biggest things to work on, Schmidtknecht singled out cutting down on turnovers a major point of emphasis. If they are able to significantly scale those back, he believes they can find themselves competitive in games they weren’t last season.

After an 0-19 start last year, G-E-T got off the schneid with back-to-back wins (including a conference win against Black River Falls) in February to give their young players a little boost of confidence. While they are still a program looking to move themselves in a positive direction as much as anything else, that is something they hope to build on early in the new season.

“Things will be tough for us as we’re young. We’re a rebuilding program,” Schmidtknecht said. “We’re young and I think we’ll have those growing pains. We won’t get away from them this year, but we can work through them. I think if we can cut our turnovers down, cut some of those things down. I think we’ll be good.”