Inexperienced Wildcat girls have new coach

When the Custer High School girls basketball team tips off its season today at the Lakota Nation Invitational, it will do so with plenty of new faces on the court, as well as a new face off the court that is ready to blow past the expectations—or lack thereof—for his team.
“I think the expectations are very low for us, and I kind of like to be in that position where you’re the hunter and not the hunted,” new head coach Gage Winkler said. “I think we can surprise people.”
The Wildcats come off a 8-13 season a year ago and lost key players to graduation, including point guard Jojo Larsen, who was the team’s primary ball handler.
Winkler was an assistant for former coach Tayton Vincent, who is now the head coach for the Wildcat boys, for the past two years. He said he was hesitant to step into the head coach role at first, but was encouraged to do so by returning players on the team.
His wife, Alexa, was supportive of the move as well, and assistant coach Becky Lowe encouraged him to take over the program. Add it all together and he decided to throw his hat into the ring, was interviewed and awarded the job.
“Once I knew I had that support I was like, ‘heck yeah, I want to do this,’” he said.
Winkler called himself a player’s coach, saying if a coach isn’t doing it for the players, he doesn’t know why they are coaching.
“I’m not there to get to the next level. I’m not coaching for wins. I’m there strictly for the girls. I want to help them reach their potential and become the best version of themselves,” he said.
Winkler hails from Gering, Neb., where he played on the high school basketball team before an injury — and sickness —plagued his senior year and ended his playing career.
The first couple of weeks have been a learning experience for both he and his players.
“We’re pretty inexperienced. We have two girls who saw a lot of (varsity) minutes and beyond that it kind of drops off,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on fundamentals and just trying to get better skill-wise. We’ve grown a ton just in the two weeks we’ve been practicing.”
As for himself, Winkler said he views his biggest strength as building relationships with the girls so they know he has their best interests in mind and wants to help them achieve their dreams, whether on the court or off the court.
“You can always keep growing that, and that’s going to be my main focus,” he said.
That is aided by Winkler’s stint as an assistant coach, so he has coached most of them already in some fashion. Stepping into the role of being the person running the practice, of course, is a different animal.
“I have an idea of what I want it to look like, but coming out and teaching it has been a challenge,” he said. “I feel like every day I’m growing, and I told them up front this is my first time doing this too, so we are all in the same boat.”
The experience that does return is in the form of senior guard Kylee Ellerton (5-5), who earned an all-conference nod a year ago, along with fellow senior Keira Nelson (5-10 F).
Those two will be joined by sophomores Rylan Lowe (5-9 G), Siena Schultz (5-7 G) and Myley May (5-9 F) in the starting lineup.
It is Ellerton, Lowe and Schultz who will be tasked with bringing the ball up the court, something handled almost exclusively by Larsen a year ago.
“I feel confident in them taking care of the ball, then we’re right into our offense,” Winkler said.
Winkler said sophomore Brianna Noble (5-7 F) will contribute off the bench, as well  as freshman Emeryson Jaure (5-5 G), sophomore Lexi Wilkins (5-6 F) and freshman Myah Keller (5-10 F). 
Winkler said Wildcat fans will see some changes from the ’Cats’ style of play a year ago, including not pressing as much defensively and settling into a half court  defense heavy on ball pressure and denying paint entry.
“We’re keeping the ball out of there and we really want to frustrate teams with that,” Winkler said. “We’re really happy when the shot clock is dwindling and we’ve been playing defense and you know teams are getting frustrated because they can’t get the ball inside.”
On offense, Winkler said the team will play more of a “positionless” offense, where every player knows every job on the court.
“It’s brand new for them and they’re still learning it and adjusting, but I think it will pay off once everyone figures out their role,” he said.
As far as team strengths, Winkler said the team is not driven by egos, but rather, players who are bought into playing good team defense and rebounding, which he said if the team continues to stick with will make it more competitive.
Every drill in practice has been made competitive and is charted, with the top five competitors being named weekly.
“That’s been our main focus the last two or three weeks, competing in everything we do. It doesnt’ matter what it is,” he said. “We’ve been competing against each other for three weeks. It’s time to go hit someone else on a rebound.”
As far as potential weaknesses the team’s youth sticks out, and Winkler said as has been the case for the past few years, scoring could be a challenge.
That will make team defense imperative, he said.
“I tell them all the time, your girl doesn’t score, the ball scores. We have to stop the ball. That’s going to have to be our big focus because offensively we’re going to struggle to score points,” he said.
In the conference race, Winkler said defending state runnerup Mahpíya Lúta is the favorite, but will be joined at the top by Hill City, St. Thomas More and potentially Rapid City Christian and the two Class AA schools.
As far as his team, he believes it will land somewhere in the middle of the conference, with the belief the Wildcats will be able to compete with any of the teams on a given night.
“We don’t have a ton of size, but you know I really believe in just competing and playing with heart,” he said.
At the end of the season, Winkler said, he would like to be able to look from day one to the end and see how the team grew and came together.
“I want people who come to our games to take some things away, and one of them is we all play together like we’re having fun: smiles on everyone’s faces, high fives all around. Like this is true team basketball and there’s no egos,” Winkler said. “I’m here to help these girls reach their potential as people, because basketball is going to end for everyone. That’s what I’m here for and that’s how we measure success, how we’ve grown from day one to now.
“No matter what the score is, if we’re winning by 20 or if we’re losing by 20 it’s going to look the same. We’re going to be playing our butts off the entire game. If we can go in the locker room at the end of the game and ask ourselves did we compete for 32 minutes, were we focused for 32 minutes and did we hustle and play good defense? If we can answer yes to those things, then that’s success for us.” 
The team tips off its sesaon today at the Lakota Nation Invitational, where it is the 11 seed. The Wildcats face Omaha Nation at 2 p.m.