Anselmo-Merna begins play today at the NSAA girls state basketball championships. The Lady Coyotes advanced to the state tournament by defeating Leyton in the D2-8 district championship game 45-42. Anselmo-Merna is 20-5 on the season and will make its seventh overall appearance at the girls state basketball tournament and their first since qualifying in 2022. AM girls head basketball coach Trenton Kirchmann took time to visit with KCNI/KBBN sports this week as the Lady Coyotes prepare for a state tournament run. Coach Kirchmann commented on the areas where he has seen the most growth and improvement from the beginning of the season to now.
“I think at the beginning of the year we were pretty reliant on just Makenna (Miller). She started off the year averaging about 20-25 a game in first four to five games. If her shots weren’t falling or the defense was pretty an extra focus on her our team kind of struggled to get away from that. Since about 8-9 games in we really kind of made a flip on that. Her (Miller’s) numbers, average, went down a little bit but the team had more success since then. She has embraced her role as a passer and other girls have started stepping up and taking on the role of scoring. It’s really made us pretty difficult to guard and that’s kind of been I think our strong suit is that we’ve grown in the ability to where we don’t have to rely on one person.”
Anselmo-Merna will face Falls City Sacred Heart in the Class D2 opening round this evening at the Devaney Center in Lincoln. FCSH is 23-4 this season and is one of the most decorated programs in Nebraska girls basketball with eight state titles and five runner up finishes. Coach Kirchmann talked about what the focus has been this week in practice as they prepare to go up against the Lady Irish.
“Yeah, Falls City Sacred Heart, their reputation preceeds them. They’re a good team. I’ve watched some film on them and have already seen a little bit of what they do. They’re not necessarily the Sacred Heart of old. They don’t quite have the same amount of numbers that they’ve had in the past but they are still a Sacred Heart team that is in their 14th straight year making the state (tournament). Our focus is we have to stop the Lechtenberg girl, #12 (leading scorer at 15.2 ppg). They kind of have a three headed monster that can score. The biggest thing for us is we don’t want to give them anything easy. Everything they do they have to earn. So that’s our focus is really dialing in our defense, our transition defense. Not turning the ball over. Just basic basketball stuff. I mean we’ve seen Sacred Heart in the past, I think everyone has. They don’t do anything flashy but they are one of the most discplined and structured teams in the state and we want to try to take them out of that a little bit just with our hard nosed defense.”
Tonight’s game is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on KBBN 95.3 FM and kbbn.com with pregame coverage beginning around 5:30 p.m. The winner will advance out to the state semifinals on Friday night where they will meet the winner of tonight’s game between St. Mary’s and Archangels Catholic.
Listen to our full interview with Coach Kirchmann
