Bison lineup set for first shots Friday night

McCook High will start five seniors when the girls play their season at home against Chase County Friday night. From left are Kennedy Walter, Tori Honn, Shawna Wilkinson, Gracelyn Wiemers and Joylyn Rippen. The Bison also make their first road trip on Saturday to challenge Valentine.

R.B. Headley/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — McCook girls basketball coach Amy Scheil offered some insights about the Bison’s first two varsity games of 2022-23 this weekend.

McCook hosts Chase County Friday before visiting Southwest Conference opponent Valentine Saturday afternoon.

“The first two games we will be starting our seniors seniors (shown above), they are playing well together and have earned the right to start the first couple of games.

Chase County and Valentine are two very good teams so they will give us a good barometer of what we need to continue to work on and what we need to do from here.

Both teams can match our depth so I think both games will be very competitive. Chase County almost made it to state last year and has a lot of returning players and Valentine has there whole team back and are much improved.

Looking forward to watching both of them play tonight against Cozad and O’Neill and hopefully get some insights on what we will face.”

Many area teams open their basketball season tonight. A schedule can be seen at left.

Meanwhile, the McCook High boys also debut off their 20-win district finalist season one year ago.

The Bison host Chase County, who returns their top players from last season when they finished 10-16.

However, the Longhorns actually delivered a winning season after an 0-7 start.

The Valentine boys strugged through a 1-20 season where they won over Cody-Kilgore, 54-41. More details about the boys will appear Friday.