Open up the Trinity Lutheran girls basketball scorebook and there won’t be a large point total next to Emma Goecker’s name.
And she’s perfectly fine with that.
Early on in the season, really before it ever started, Trinity Lutheran coach Mike Lang sat Goecker down and told her how she could get extended minutes on the court.
Lang explained she needed to be excellent on the defensive end and take great care of the basketball and that she probably wouldn’t be looked upon for points.
With so many highly touted offensive weapons on the court for the Cougars, especially freshman Bailey Tabeling and junior Sydney Jaynes, there just weren’t going to be too many set plays for Goecker.
So defense and ball handling it was for one of Trinity Lutheran’s two seniors.
Though being a lockdown defender isn’t a glamorous role, it’s one Lang and the rest of the Cougar coaching staff thought she could handle well.
“I knew how athletic she was from the soccer field, and she was always checking the other team’s best player,” Lang explained. “She has accepted her role, and not a lot of kids would come in and accept the role of being the fifth option on offense. To go out there and play defense and not turn the ball is not a glorious role, but it’s one she thrives in and one that’s important.”
Goecker’s defense played a big role in the Cougar’s second-half comeback in the sectional opener against Edinburgh.
Down by as many as 10 in the final two periods, she was tasked with picking up the Cougars’ defense early on at half-court to stop the Lancers from getting into their sets.
Playing shutdown defense was all she was focused on, even as her final high school basketball season hung in the balance.
“For the most part, I blocked out everything else for the last three minutes,” she said. “I knew I had to pick up my defense at half-court and slow them down as much as possible.”
When Tabeling hit that buzzer-beating 3-pointer to save the Trinity Lutheran season, the feeling of relief overcame Goecker, and the victory felt more like a sectional championship win than a first-round survival.
Goecker and the Cougars now turn their attention to the Class A top-ranked Loogootee Lions, a familiar foil this scholastic sports season.
The Lions were a major steppingstone for the Cougars volleyball team a handful of months ago and are the first hurdle to overcome Saturday.
Three things stuck out to the Cougars during their film session. The Lions are fast and aggressive, but they aren’t very big.
While Jackson County neighbor Brownstown Central has staked its claim on being the best undersized rebounding team around, the Cougars feel like their size advantage could pay dividends this weekend.
“They’re very fast, but they don’t have a lot of size, so I think we can definitely take them through that,” Goecker said. “They’ve been ranked No. 1 for a while, and we’re both right there, and we’ve got to play our best and hope it all goes well.”
Lang agrees the Cougars will have a superior height advantage but says the top priority for success is going to be ball movement. Being stagnant with the basketball is going open the Cougars up to being trapped once they cross the half-court line, and that’s something that just can’t happen.
“We’ve got to move the ball without dribbling, and you’ve got to do it with crisp passes,” Lang said. “I think that’s going to make them over-rotate out of their zone, and the more we move the ball down low and play inside-out, it’s going to open things up.”
Another key is going to be how well the Cougars can handle playing two games in one day if they prove victorious in the first game.
Trinity Lutheran isn’t very deep, playing six players consistently for the entire 32 minutes.
They’ve prepared for this since the summer, however, playing in weeklong events featuring 12 games in three days and have done so this season in holiday tournaments like at Eastern Greene High School.
But perhaps the biggest boon will be their end-of-season schedule.
“I don’t know if there’s a 1A school that played as tough a schedule as we did to end the season,” Lang said. “That has really prepared us, as well.”
The Cougars’ final four games were against 3A and 4A teams, going 3-1 in that four-game stretch. They have yet to lose to a Class A team this season.
They’ll face their toughest team to date in the class Saturday at noon at West Washington High School.