(Falls City) -- Falls City Sacred Heart girls basketball's traditional trip to the Class D2 State Tournament begins Thursday morning.
The Irish (23-3) are into the state tournament for the 12th consecutive year, 18th time in the past 19 years and 27th trip in program history.
"It never gets old," Sacred Heart head girls basketball coach Luke Santo tells KMA Sports. "It's never easy to go through the grind of a season. One of our goals is to always give ourselves a chance to get to Lincoln. It's a good time of the year."
Sacred Heart's latest trip to state comes after trouncing Osceola, 58-32, in a district final.
"Almost every night, we're good defensively," Santo said. "We did a good job against Osceola's guards. We scored 58 points, but we left a lot of points out there."
While they don't know any different, Santo says trips to Lincoln are rarely talked about in his program.
"It's an unspoken expectation," Santo said. "Our girls embrace the tradition."
If there was ever a year for the streak to end, this looked to be it. The Irish lost several standouts from last year's state championship squad. However, the new lineup hardly missed a beat.
"We knew the cupboard wasn't bare," Santo said. "We had a good summer. That's where it started. Before Christmas, we were up and down. We've found something and have been playing good basketball."
Jessica Wertenberger, Olivia Eickhoff, Delanie Witt, Makinley School and Macy Keller lead the Sacred Heart lineup.
The Irish face Leyton in the first round of the state tournament. The Indians (16-5) and Sacred Heart have one common opponent: Parkview Christian. Leyton beat them by 17 in a district final, while Sacred Heart beat them by 13 on February 17th.
"They have a girl averaging 22 points per game," Santo said. "We have to take her away. They play a lot of zone, so we'll have to get ready for that. We play a lot of man. A lot of teams (in western Nebraska) don't play a lot of man. We hope that's an advantage for us."
While Sacred Heart has yearly reservations in Lincoln, Leyton is making its first trip since 1983.
"They're young," Santo said. "One of the advantages we have is experience. We've been on this stage before. We're used to this. Experience is key for us. The way we're playing defense, we hope Leyton has to play like we play."
Trevor Maeder (@TrevMaeder96) will have reports from Leyton/Falls City Sacred Heart Thursday morning at 9 AM from Pinnacle Bank Arena.
Click below to hear the full interview with Coach Santo.
