The Lady Braves are headed to the 4A State Basketball Tournament for the fourth straight season and for the seventh time in the last eight seasons after a successful run at the 4A West Regionals in Evanston over the weekend where they finished as the #2 seed.

“We always talk about their defense with this group and they are gritty and tenacious,” replied head coach Kade Erickson. “We’ll have to keep playing that way. We’d love to have our offensive production be a bit better but we’ll keep working on finishing around the rim and our free throws which hurt us in the last two games this past weekend. I thought we played well overall.”

In the opening round, Star Valley broke open their contest with Rock Springs in the second half with a dominant third quarter as they pulled away for a 47-26 final. Junior Avery England led the team with ten points and six steals in the contest.

The semifinal game against Natrona County was the third meeting between the two schools this season after Star Valley had defeated the Fillies in twice in hard-fought low-scoring battles. The third chapter was no different as points came at a premium and defense was the key factor. England had a season-high 14 points and collected six rebounds for the team to lead the offense while Camryn Mackey added nine points. Morgan McGee also finished with six rebounds and Ambrey Nelson chipped in six points.

In the finals against Green River the Lady Braves were the decided underdogs to the favored Wolves but battled for the full 32 minutes in a 46-38 loss. Nelson scored 14 points and Livy Kleeman finished with nine points and seven rebounds off the bench. Ari Foster provided a spark in the second quarter to help keep the lead from ballooning out of reach and finished with seven points.

“Avery had a great weekend,” Erickson added. “She was playing with confidence and we decided to sit her in that championship game and our bench players played really well and we hope we can take all that into this week.”

The Lady Braves as the #2 seed from the Western Conference will now face the #3 seed from the East in the Thunder Basin Bolts with a tip-off time of 3:30 this Thursday from Casper College.

“We’re really excited to face Thunder Basin,” Erickson stated. “They are a solid team and we’ve watched some film on them. They have a solid lineup with a rotation of about eight players. They run a man-to-man defense and some pressure in the back court. We need to make our defense in the best place at the right time. I think it will be a great match up for us.”

Star Valley will be looking to win in the 4A bracket for the first time since 2021 when they defeated Cheyenne Central in the consolation bracket. The team will be looking to win their opening round game for the first time since moving back into the 4A classification in the 2018-19 season. It’s the first time Coach Erickson’s program has not faced Cheyenne East in the opening round. The program qualified for State in the 2019-20 campaign but the State tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Thunder Basin went (12-9) during the regular season. At the 4A East Regionals they defeated Laramie 46-39 before losing to eventual regional champion Cheyenne East 52-48 in the semifinals. The Bolts then defeated Sheridan 47-30 in the third place game. The 4A East has seven teams instead of eight so there was no second elimination game.

Coach Erickson is headed to the culminating event with 92 career wins for the Lady Braves, that is the fifth most in program history. Doran Erickson is fourth with 107, Robert Erickson is third with 109, Kade Wilkes is second with 124 and Robert Linford is the all-time wins leader for the program with 186.

SVI Media will be in Casper to provide audio coverage on Swift 98 in the Star Valley area as well as on the SVI News app. Audio coverage and video highlight packages after the game will be available at SVInews.com.