As every student athlete would know, the season comes and goes in the blink of an eye. It begins and then, before you know it, the final minutes are being played out on the clock knowing that another whole year will pass before the teammates that are considered family will be back on the floor together. The 2019-20 girls basketball season started off slow, before ramping up into its full swing with games and practice. As the team got deeper into the season, the girls had their plates full with basketball everyday, while still needing to keep up their performance in the classroom. Junior captain, Makayla Bowen, explains that the season went better than expected, having given a lot of the section’s most talented teams close nail biter games. She, like everyone else on the team, wishes that they would have won more games. However, despite narrowly falling short in many games, the team has another goal in mind. Bowen maintained, “We wanted to grow and get better each day and we achieved that goal by playing pretty well at the end of the season.”

Unfortunately, the season came to a heartbreaking end on Tuesday, February 18, as the girls played in their first playoff game against the Caledonia Warriors. The Bombers were the 16th seed while the visitors were 17th. Caledonia came out extremely strong on both sides of the court in the first half. The Bombers were caught off guard and, once the Bombers found their rhythm in the second half, they struggled to climb out of the hole. The girls played their hearts out, leaving everything on the court, but sadly fell short of the victory, ending their season with a 9-15 record. It’s always hard to go out on a loss on home court, but as head coach, Samantha McCamy explained: “There is only one team that will end their season with a win because only one team gets to win state. So, no matter when it is taken, it is always hard to finish your season on a loss.” Bowen, goes into detail about how she wishes “the team had had a bit more confidence in their ability as a whole – something to work on next year.” 

This season, the team was made up of mostly juniors and sophomores. They will be losing one senior next year: Tiara Danyluk. Danyluk says the thing she is going to miss the most about being a part of the team are the friendships and being on the court fighting for team. Even though she is graduating, she will always have a place as a Cannon Falls Bomber girls basketball player. Other than the loss of the single senior, next year’s team will look the same as it did this year. With a year under their belts playing together, the team will be ready to come back and hit the court ready to work hard, and will surely be a force to be reckoned with next season.