Emporia High girls coach Bill Nienstedt knows how important defense, rebounding and offensive efficiency will be tonight when the Lady Spartans take on Washburn Rural, the fourth-ranked team in Class 6A.
But there’s another aspect of the game that Nienstedt believed would be just as crucial to the Lady Spartans’ success in Topeka — the EHS girls can’t be scared of Washburn Rural.
“We have to play with no fear,” Nienstedt said. “We have to go up there with the intent of winning the game, and then play to the best of our ability.”
But as much as the Emporia (4-3, 1-2) girls would like to enter tonight’s 7:15 matchup with the Junior Blues (7-1, 3-1) completely at ease, that might be easier said than done.
“I think everybody is excited, and we’re all a little bit nervous, but that’s going to happen,” sophomore Lexi Hileman said. “I think it happens every year when we play Washburn Rural.”
Perhaps the reason Washburn Rural instills such fright in its opponents is because the Junior Blues are efficient on offense and a terror on defense. Though the Junior Blues average 56.9 points per game — not exactly eye-popping offensive numbers — they shut down opponents defensively, only allowing teams to score 31.1 points per game clip.
“You have to handle their pressure first, because they bring it in waves. They go 10 deep, and they can play five, sit those five, and bring another five in,” Nienstedt said. “There’s not a kid in that 10 that can’t score, and they have a lot of games where they have one kid in double figures and eight more that have scored somewhere between six and nine points.
“It’s not a team where you can lay off a kid and say, ‘She’s not going to hurt us.’ You just can’t play that way.”
Emporia is coming off two consecutive blowout wins — a 73-32 thrashing of Highland Park and a 57-35 victory over Leavenworth. In those two wins combined, the Lady Spartans used impressive defense to force a total of 52 turnovers, while only committing 26 of their own.
However, Hileman said it will take even better on-ball defense tonight for the Lady Spartans to come away with the victory over Washburn Rural, which is coming off a 48-43 win over Seaman on Tuesday.
“I think good pressure kills about any team” Hileman said. “If we can pressure good enough, we can get them flustered to where we can cause turnovers and we can get transition baskets off those turnovers.”
Hileman said the Lady Spartans’ recent success was a starting point, but that they will have to play much better tonight if they hope to pull off the upset.
“I think we played good the last few games,” Hilemans said, “but (today), we’re going to have to take it up about 10 notches.”