Girls Basketball: National Title or Bust for Lady Raiders

Close doesn’t cut it if you are the girls basketball team.

The Lady Raiders want to be national champions, but fell a game short and finished second best last season.

Bolingbrook lost in a double overtime game in the Nike Tournament of Champions, which wound up costing the team national bragging rights.

“They were a team we could’ve probably beat if we were all focused that night,” Smith said. “It was a bad night for us and it came back and bit us in the hand. So we had to settle for second.

“We’ve always wanted to be the best. Not just the best in Bolingbrook. No just the best in the state of Illinois. We want to be the best in the country, so we try to go out and play the toughest teams out there.”

Smith's teams have played a national schedule for the last five or six years and have placed in the top 5 in the last four seasons. 

With , the Lady Raiders are primed to go for it all.

“We are definitely playing a tougher schedule,” senior forward Charosnese “Cha-Cha” Williams said. “We are going to Tennessee this week and then Phoenix.”

Locally, Smith said Homewood-Flossmoor and Lincoln-Way East would be the toughest conference opponents while Benet Academy and Waubonsie Valley will be the biggest obstacles to a fourth-straight 4A state championship.

“All those teams have point guards coming back and lots of seniors coming back like we do,” Smith said. “In a way, I think Benet Academy and Waubonsie Valley around here will be challenging. When playoff time comes, it’s about the team that’s clicking together the most that will make a run for it. The last three years, we’ve been really fortunate enough to have that team be us.”

Williams said the public/media pressures are not affecting the girls concentration.

“Most of all, it’s pressure on ourselves to get better and do better than last year,” Williams said. “Obviously, we want to win state, but we are actually trying to win a national title this year. It’s mostly pressure coming from ourselves and not from the public to do better.”

Senior guard/forward DaLacy Anderson said she feels it is realistic for the girls to win state again.

“I know we are putting in a lot of hard work and are definitely focused,” Anderson said. “As long as we stay focused and keep up with the hard work, we’ll do it.”

Winning another state championship is not all that important to Smith.

“It’s about what they want to do,” Smith said. “If it’s a case that they want to win four titles, they will win four titles. If they choose to be satisfied with three, we won’t win a fourth. It’s basically up to the kids to see what they really want to do. I’m going to be here to support them either way.”

Smith said he does not have a starting lineup established, but said it will gradually come to realization.

“We have 11 girls trying to compete to be the first five on the floor, but I’m looking forward to all 11 playing,” Smith said. “That first couple of weeks we’ll let them decide the top five, the top rotations in the first couple games we play.

Besides the seniors, Smith said junior guard Kamari Jordan and sophomore guard Destiny Harris are players who could become big contributors.