The Owensboro Lady Red Devils won their first 3rd Region championship since 1992 this past weekend, but their success this season didn’t occur overnight or even last year after their loss to Owensboro Catholic in the regional championship. The program has been building towards this moment for years.
Head coach Jansen Locher said the road to the championship took baby steps to reach, but it all started with a, at the time, newly appointed Locher simply seeing the boys’ regional championship banners and deciding it was time for the girls to add to their 1992 banner. They got close to the regional championship last year, but they hit a speed bump in the form of Owensboro Catholic. That only served as more motivation.
“It’s been a long time coming, but we built it slowly,” he said. “We were always the 4 seed and never had a shot. Even in the district tournament. It took baby steps to give ourselves a chance. Last year, we were able to get out of the district okay. Once you’re out of the district, you can run in regionals. We started hot against Catholic, but then we lost it at the end. Ever since then, we have been back in the gym pushing for this moment.”
The buildup goes even further back as Locher credits some of his former players with lifting the title. Players such as Kaylyn Sowders and Tayonna Greer helped kickstart the slow climb to another banner. Locher knew that they might not achieve that goal while Sowders and Greer were still on the team, but he knew those first steps were crucial. Former players, such as those returning to support the program, meant a lot to Locher as he steadily saw the crowds for OHS get bigger and bigger.
“Kaylyn Sowders FaceTimed me earlier crying she was so happy,” he said. “She was one of those that we said, ‘You’re going to build something. You may not see the end result while you’re here, but eventually we’re going to get there. Know that it started with you guys.’ We’ve had great players. When I first started Tayonna Greer, Lulu Greer’s sister, played for me. She was a great player, and all of those girls came back and supported the program.”
“That’s what we needed because people graduated and they forgot about the program, but we wanted people invested to know that this is a family,” he continued. “When you leave here, we still care about you and love you. We had all that support and it just gradually kept getting better and bigger with more people coming to games.”
As for the current team, Locher began developing players from as early as middle school to fit into his future championship team. Unique Carter-Swanagan and A’Lyrica Hughes are examples of such players as they have been a part of the team since they were in 8th grade. The addition of transfer students such as Shalyn Sprinkles greatly helped progress the team as well, Locher said.
“We built the talents from the young girls up by taking them to camps and colleges and all that stuff just to have this moment,” he said. “We’ve had A’Lyrica Hughes since she was in 8th grade, and we pulled up Unique Carter-Swanagan as an 8th grader a few years ago as well. Both of them were kind of the stepping stones that we built off of. All the seniors we have right now, they’ve been by our side ever since. It really built around them as our solid foundation. That way when other girls come in, they just fill the gaps. We got a couple of girls that transferred like Sprinkles who moved from Henderson. She kind of fit into what we wanted to build in a championship team.”
Hughes, who was named to 3rd Region All-Tournament Team, said that winning the championship after putting so much work in individually and as a team was like a dream come true. After having been with the team since she was in middle school, Hughes went through the trials and tribulations along the path to the championship, but after finding the missing pieces and utilizing them on the court while also believing in themselves, Hughes finally realized her dream.
“It’s big because there were lots of highs and lows,” she said. “There were points where we were the bottom seed and we had to play one of the best teams, but you have to keep believing, keep working and let God do his thing. He allowed us to get to this point, so I give all thanks to him on that. I think it just came down to finding the pieces that we maybe didn’t have. We just have a good team with us. It helps a lot having different pieces you can put into the game, and everybody comes in and does their thing. It feels good to know that if we keep believing and keep working, then we can keep going until we can’t.”
Locher also praised Owensboro Catholic and their head coach Michael Robertson as he knew you had to beat the best to be the best.
“If you’re going to be the best, you have to beat the best,” he said. “They are. Coach Robertson has 6 regional championships. He’s been there and done that, and he has made runs in the state tournament. To be able to beat that good of a team that’s that well coached makes us know that we’re legit.”
The last coach to win the regional championship with the Lady Red Devils and take them to state was coach Warren Hurst who passed away recently on Feb. 23. Locher said that Hurst would have loved to have been there to witness them lift the trophy in person, but he was still there with them in spirit.
Owensboro are now back in the state tournament and will face off against Henderson County on Thursday at Rupp Arena, and Locher says the team will enjoy their title, but they will turn around and focus on their next game as they have just as good of a shot at winning than any other team in the bracket.
“We feel like if we go up to state, we have a 1/16 shot at winning it just like everybody else,” he said after the championship game. “We’re going to enjoy the moment, but we’re going to be back tomorrow working hard to get ready to win our first game.”
