HOPE — The Class A Waldron Sectional will be one of the deepest, toughest, and most competitive girls basketball sectional sites in the state.
Five of the seven teams have at least 14 wins this season and are ranked in the top 210 in the Sagarin Ratings for all classes. Hauser is not one of those teams, but the Jets don’t seem to mind.
Hauser, which finished the regular season 5-17, has embraced the underdog role heading into its opening-round sectional matchup against Southwestern (Shelby) with an approximate tipoff of 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“The impression I get is that the other teams are going to be a hard out, but the impression is that despite our record, none of those other teams are going to take us for granted,” Hauser coach Brad Hamilton said. “They probably see us as the hardest out because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
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The Jets are better than what their record may indicate.
Hauser played the toughest schedule out of all the teams in the draw and has faced plenty of obstacles, including injuries and illness. There wasn’t a game this year where the Jets were at full strength. They were short-handed in close losses against Southwestern and Jac-Cen-Del, which is considered a slight favorite.
“We’ve had a different lineup almost every night and I think it’s hard to gain continuity. My focus is getting us to that mode,” Hamilton said. “There’s been times this year that these guys have proven that no matter who we put on the floor, we were clicking, and we were consistent, but because of our different combinations starting out every game, I don’t think we’ve gotten into any sort of routine, and that makes us very dangerous. I truly believe we can beat any of these teams, so that’s a really good feeling.”
It was a bumpy road for Hauser to start the season. The Jets began 1-7, but their one win was against Class A then-No. 5 Trinity Lutheran.
After Hauser’s close loss to Jac-Cen-Del on Nov. 28, the Jets won three of their next four games. They played a brutal January schedule that ended with losses to Mid-Hoosier Conference champion North Decatur and Shelbyville in the final week of the regular season.
Hauser believes they let the game to the Chargers slip away from them. Regardless, the Jets feel like they are setting up great for sectional play.
“We started off not working well as a team, but as the games wore on, we were building more togetherness as a team,” senior Taylor Henderson said. “In the last two games (against North Decatur and Shelbyville), we started working together and communicating better and actually playing like we know how to play.”
In Hauser’s earlier season matchup with the Spartans, getting to the free-throw line was the biggest difference. The Jets attempted only eight to Southwestern’s 35.
A lot of the Hauser players dealt with foul trouble, which led to a 49-42 loss. The Jets also played short-handed, missing point guard Bree Hadley, one of its top scorers to injury, at the time.
“We’re going to have to work as a team a lot better, and we have gotten better on that,” senior Mykenzie Ault said. “It took us awhile, but we’ve grown throughout the year as a team.”
Hauser is anxious to get sectional play started. With everyone back for the second matchup with the Southwestern, the Jets hope to turn the tables.
“We came up short in the first game, but I feel like we’re going to come back stronger because we know that we lost the game,” senior Jada Asher said. “We’re the underdogs in our sectional, and we haven’t beaten any of those teams, so we have to go out and show them how we actually know how to play.”
Henderson, Ault and Asher will hope to add some hardware before their high school basketball careers are finished. Hamilton has had many athletes go through his program, and this is the first senior class that basketball was the top sport for each.
“The hallmark of this group of seniors is that they never give up. They’ve all faced adversity, whether it be injuries or having to play behind other players when they were ready to go. They’ve all dedicated a lot of their lives through their basketball careers,” Hamilton said. “When you get to this stage, it’ll come to all of us eventually, but it’s never easy. For them, they can look in the mirror and say, ‘They gave it 100-percent each time they stepped on the floor.’
“They take the time and explain things to the younger kids,” he added. “There’s a lot of appreciation for that aspect of their leadership and that’s one thing I’ll miss.”
