Cyclones open Regionals against Hawkeye Ten opponent

After concluding their regular season with an overall record of 17-4, the HCHS girls basketball team opens their first round of regional play against the Red Oak Tigers.

“I think we’re going to be able to go pretty far,” said Cyclone Senior Aubrey Schwieso. “That’s my hope anyway.”

Last season the Cyclones made a deep run into Regionals that took them all the way to the Class 3A - Quarterfinal game at Wells Fargo Arena against the Mount Vernon Mustangs losing 67-25, after beating the Cherokee Washington Braves in the substate regional final 50-47.

“I think we know what it takes,” Schwieso said. “We have girls that are coming in with a lot of experience and some girls with not as much experience to start the season. We’ve had a lot of growth in everybody, especially the young ones.”

Schwieso is set to graduate soon along with Grace Albertsen and Molly Swensen. Schwieso is looking forward to one more final run with these girls.

“Just knowing it’s our final season makes it so much more exciting and soaking up all the memories with them,” she said. “We’re all really good friends just outside of the sport and the sport has brought us so much closer together, and we kind of don’t want to admit that it’s coming to an end, but unfortunately it is.”

During this season, some of the Cyclones win came against Shenandoah, Glenwood, Lewis Central, Kuemper Catholic, Winterset, and others. Their four losses came against Treynor, St. Albert twice, and Atlantic.

“January is a pretty full month and then coming into the first few weeks of February we had a lot of games,” Schwieso said. “It’s important that we’re all sticking together and stay in the win column.”

The Cyclones will host Red Oak Saturday night at home. During the season Red Oak went 0-20. They were led by Junior Ellison Johnson averaging 7.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, along with Sophomore Keely Jones averaging 1.7 assists per game.

Regardless of how the season plays out, Schwieso will forever be grateful for her time playing Cyclone basketball.

“I think it’s the people,” she said. “We have a great community and a lot of people show up every night to support us. The girls on the team are like a family and you don’t get that everywhere you go, so I’m grateful for the all the experiences and all the people basketball has brought me.”