The Pierre Governor boys and girls basketball teams will begin the 2025-26 season tonight and Saturday as the Governor girls will host Stevens and Rapid City central while the boys will travel.
The Governor girls are coming off another state tournament appearance last season in which they were the seventh seed. However, Pierre graduated Lennix DuPris, Grace Ricther, Gracelyn Taylor, Adison Soma and Carly Malm as the Govs will get four new starters into the lineup starting tonight. Emery Larson returns for her second season with the Governors and is one of four seniors with Jasmine Jost and McKenzi Flottmeyer. Paige Sporrer is the other senior but is out with an injury. Stevens comes in after getting fourth in the state last year but do graduate standout Taaliyah Porter, but just her and Brittney Jones are the only two seniors to graduate. They will be a tough first team to go against. Saturday’s game against Central will also be a tough matchup. While Central went 3-17, they lost just one senior last year and will have good size heading into the season. Kirk Beebout, head coach of the Pierre Governors says they are going to compete their best this weekend at home against the two Rapid City teams…
While the games count, Beebout understands it and feels it’s more of preseason with the limited practice, a couple of weekends of games and then you get into Christmas and regardless of wins and losses this weekend, Beebout says he wants to see this girls keep wanting to learn…
The Governor boys will be on the road to face Stevens and Central this weekend with a new coach in charge. Larry Aaker takes over as head coach after Brianna Kusler stepped down after being the head coach for the last four years. The Governors last season went 6-15 but also graduated six seniors from last year’s team which includes Luke Olson, Dawson Getz, Eladio Simental, Sawyer Sonnenschein, Cayden Morris and Bennett Swartos. The Govs will still have five seniors on this year’s team which includes Sincere Wilson, Corde Austin, Jayden Brandt, Billy VerBeek and Lincoln Dilges. Stevens went 7-14 last year finishing one spot ahead of the Governors in the standings although Pierre opened the season with a win over the Raiders. Stevens graduated seven seniors from last year. Central was a spot ahead of Stevens at 8-13, but also lost to the Govs in the opening weekend of the season, but only graduated two seniors heading into this season. Aaker says the first few weeks have been an adjustment time for both the players and him to start the season…
Aaker says they need to do the little things right this weekend…
The Governor boys will have a tip time of 8:00 and 2:00 Central times on Friday and Saturday and Rapid City with the girls host Friday at 7:00 and then Saturday at 1:00. Saturday’s game against Rapid City Central will be on KCCR and on YouTube at KCCR Sports with Wyatt Burichka on the call.
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