The Montgomery County girls basketball team is excited about its senior class for the 2023-2024 season.

The Wildcats have five seniors who combined for over 1,000 points last winter. Claire Cobb, Madi Polston, Maddy Queathem, Malia Rodgers and Olivia Shaw make up the senior class. All of them have played with the program since they were freshmen.

“Those five kids have been through the ringer with me,” MCHS coach Joe Basinger said. “We graduated some big kids over the last few years. But these kids have been key parts of what we have done for the last few years.”

The seniors helped the Wildcats enjoy a busy summer that included shootouts in Park Hills Central, Monroe City and MCHS and an overnight camp at Drury University in Springfield. They led a team that included juniors Aliviah Fischer and Miley Rieke and freshman Aubrey Janes.

“They have provided great leadership for our young girls,” Basinger said. “All summer long, they were very encouraging to them, they’re very inclusive with them and it’s really helping out. I can see this team already starting to come together and gel, which is nice.”

The Wildcats wrapped up their summer play on June 26 with a come-from-behind, 32-28 win over Hannibal in the MCHS Shootout at Ballew & Snell Court. Queathem and Rodgers each hit two free throws in the last two minutes of the games to help MCHS pull off the victory.

“They made winning plays down the stretch,” Basinger said. “They hit free throws, hit some shots and came up with some big defensive stops. That’s what it’s all about. I told them after the game that we’ve been too good of a ballclub for the last number of years to ever lose confidence.”

The Wildcats also played Owensville and St. James – both Class 4 teams – in the MCHS Shootout. They also played against Class 4 and 5 teams in the Park Hills Central Shootout and Class 6 teams from Oklahoma at the Drury Shootout.

“It was a great summer,” Basinger said. “I thought we got better as the summer went on. We competed. I always tell the girls that I don’t care about wins and losses. I actually try to make a summer schedule hard enough to where we’re going under .500. I don’t want to win every game that we play in the summer. To me, we’re not doing ourselves any good. We didn’t lose more than we won. We ended up winning more than we lost. I’m proud of their efforts. I thought we played well.”

MCHS also played a two-minute tournament on June 26. Basinger said the tournament allows teams to learn how to play in the closing minutes of a game.

“I think that’s going to really pay dividends for us in the season when we get into those close games,” Basinger said. “We’ll have some more experience with how to handle those situations. Everybody who did it here just loved it, raved about it and talked about how good it was. So I was really appreciative of the coaches accepting to do that. It put us behind schedule, but they all said it was worth it.”

Last year, the Wildcats won 22 games and captured the Eastern Missouri Conference title. Rodgers earned all-state and all-conference honors, while Queathem and Shaw were named on the all-EMO team.