The St. Vincent Lady Indians basketball team will have a tougher row to hoe this season if they’re looking to repeat last season’s success.
The Lady Indians wrapped up the 2024-2025 season with a record of 27-4 and a second-place finish in the Missouri State Activities Association’s Class 2 state championships, a finish that forced the team to move up to Class 3 under MSHSAA’s rules regarding private schools. That means that this season, the Lady Indians will be facing tougher competition from larger schools as they attempt to replicate or better their previous performance.
That said, coach Mel Kirn isn’t too concerned, especially since he’s already upgraded the Lady Indians’ competition level.
“We’re playing some 4A and 5A schools, and a couple of 6A schools,” Kirn said, referring to the team’s schedule. “It’s going to be a tougher schedule for us that should make us play a little bit harder and let us see where we’re at toward the end of the year. Hopefully, playing those other schools will make us a better team.”
The Lady Indians (1-2) are already off to a bit of a rocky start, after a 68-34 loss to Class 3 Principia (3- 0) in the St. Paul Shootout, and a 60-52 loss to Class 5 opponent MICDS (3-0). The Lady Indians earned their first victory of the season Monday against the Saxony Lutheran (1-5), beating the Lady Crusaders 74-26.
“We played [Principia] the first game of the year, and hopefully we’ll get to play them in the last game of the year up in the state finals if things go our way and we play good ball,” Kirn said. “Then we played MICDS, and they’ve got a good ball club too. We didn’t play very good in that first half, but in the second half, we outscored them like 38-20. We can play with these kids. We’ve just got to accept how tough some of these schools are and that we’ve got to play tougher defense and get down and really get with the program.”
Kirn said he doesn’t think that will be much of an issue with the level of leadership on his team.
“We’ve got four captains this year,” Kirn said. “On my captains, I go off of what they did last year and how they produce. This year, we’ve got Lana Adams, Rylee Robinson, Kate Rubel, and Brie Rubel. All four of them are very good leaders.”
The Rubel sisters finished as the team’s leading scorers last season, each averaging 13.8 points per game. Individually, Kate led the team in rebounds, with an average of 5.6, while Brie averaged 4.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists. Adams averaged 8.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists, while Robinson averaged 6.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game.
Kirn emphasized that those four aren’t his only weapons this season.
“We got five good seniors,” Kirn said. “We’ve got four juniors, two sophomores and seven freshmen playing this year. It’s been the biggest numbers we’ve had in the last few years playing basketball. The future looks bright, and this year looks very good for the returning lettermen that we have coming back from last year.”
As for the postseason, Kirn said his team has a lot of work to do first, and that any postseason success will also come down to who has the hot hand.
“It’s whoever gets hot at the end,” Kirn said. “Whoever’s hot at the end can go. It’s just one of those things, who gets hot and who’s going to make it?”
