Lady Panthers look to rebuild in 2023

For the Prairie Home Lady Panthers, the 2021-22 season was a bitter pill to swallow. Prairie Home won just three games and were highlighted by two frustrating losing streaks of eight and 11 games. Since winning fourth place in Class 1 girls basketball in 2016-17, the Lady Panthers have spent the last five seasons without a district title. As they get set to begin the 2022-23 season, Prairie Home decided to make a change at the top. The Lady Panthers brought in Linda Scott as the new coach of the Bunceton/Prairie Home Lady Panthers.

Scott has been a coach and teacher for 43 years and has a 133-77 record going into her ninth year of coaching girls basketball. Scott said the Lady Panthers are almost starting over from scratch as only two players are returning to the team. However, Scott sees potential in her young Lady Panthers and looks to bring it out of her players as the season unfolds.

"Our strength this season is in our numbers. We have 13 girls on our roster, but we are a very young team with 12 of our 13 girls have one year or less of experience in basketball," Scott said. "Madison Brown is our one returning star and she is a great all-around player that will bring the best out of our other players. Last year, Madison was the MVP of the (Cooper County Activities Association), and a first-team All-Conference and All-District selection. She'll play as a guard and she can shoot or pass from anywhere on the court."

In addition to standout abilities of Brown, Scott said eight of her freshman players should see quality playing time and are each fighting for a spot in the starting lineup. However, Scott also said it will take everyone from top to bottom for the Lady Panthers to win games. Experience is the one component Prairie Home has that will not be an advantage for them, but Scott said Prairie Home can get back to great heights with the right amount of experience.

"Although we are a super young team that lacks experience, we have a lot of good young players who are going to have to learn the physical and mental part of high school basketball. We will only get better with time," Scott said. "Most of our young girls can play at the varsity level. We have good size at every position and we have a great leader in Madison Brown. It's going a be a learning curve for us this year, but I think we enough experience and hard work, we can make it work."

The Lady Panthers will tip-off their season on Friday as they host the Slater Lady Wildcats.