The Pierre Governor basketball teams are set to begin the season this weekend as the girls will be at home while the boys will travel out to Rapid City.
The Governor girls are coming off a state runner-up in the 2022-23 state tournament. It was the highest finish for the Governors since getting third place in 2009 after being the runner-up in both the 2007 and 2008 state tournaments. The Governors return three starters, seniors Ryann Barry and Reese Terwilliger along with junior Lennix DuPris. Kirk Beebout, the head coach of the Governors who is entering his fourth year with the team and adds Aleise Christopherson, another senior and captain into the mix with those three returning starters and Beebout says he couldn’t ask for a better set of captains and leaders…
With the second place finish, Beebout is happy he brings back the entire coaching staff from last year to this year and with high school sports can sometimes be a rarity. Beebout says he’s happy he gets to work with the staff again…
Beebout says it’s about doing things you can control throughout the first weekend to lead to the success of the first two games…
The Governor girls will face Rapid City Stevens first tonight, a rematch of the first round of last year’s AA state tournament followed by Saturday’s game against Rapid City Central. Tip off is at 7:00 on Friday and 1:00 on Saturday.
The Pierre Governor boys basketball team will have a much different look than last year. The Governors graduated all five starters from last year’s state tournament team and return Cade Kaiser and Luke Olson as the only two who played significant minutes. Brianna Kusler, the head coach of the Governors into her third year as the head coach, says the first two weeks of practice have been competitive for all the open starting spots…
Jett Zabel returns to the basketball team after missing all of last season with shoulder surgery. Zabel saw minutes on varsity as a sophomore and Kusler is happy to have him back playing again this year and says he never shies away from a challenge…
Kusler says defense and rebounding are going to win a lot of games and the Govs have to be great at it…
Pierre is in Rapid City to face Stevens tonight with an 8:00 Central time tip off with a 2:00 Central time tip on Saturday at Rapid City Central.
