The deafening silence in the gymnasium hung as junior Mylee Guinn, team captain and point guard (#15), dribbled the ball onto Newman Smith’s side of the court, eager to make another shot. With only a few seconds left on the clock, Guinn, still ready to regulate the positions, was abruptly cut off by head coach Ruth Stewart. 

As Stewart signaled to Guinn to “forfeit” her plans with the ball — no way could the Lady Raccoons surpass the 20 point advantage Newman Smith had — the other benched players walked on the court to form a line of “good sportsmanship,” all starting to high-five the opposing team. 

Such a loss and, unfortunately many others, put a stress on Guinn and the other juniors on the team, not because of the game loss itself, but because of the pressure to step up as leaders. She and the other juniors have to lead the team this year because there are no senior players.

“Being a junior on varsity and being the only upperclassmen on the team, there is definitely a lot of pressure,” junior Saishradha Ravi (#24) said. “You have all these underclassmen looking at you and you need to let them know that they’re doing great and that they need to get out of their heads from one mistake. However, trying to get out of your own head and dealing with your own mistakes, while being the leader that they and our coaches expect out of us can be stressful.”

There are seven juniors, three sophomores and a freshman on the girls varsity basketball team. Even with seven leaders on the team, jumping into that “senior” role was something all of them were expected to do a year early. 

“Stepping into that ‘senior box’ as a junior was something I wasn’t used to and many of the fellow juniors weren’t used to either,” Guinn said. “However, it was harder for me because this was also my first year as a captain. Obviously now, we’ve all gotten used to our transitions, but in the beginning it was really difficult to adapt to, especially with all of us needing to be more confident in our leadership abilities — something we struggle with till this day.” 

The efforts these juniors make to ensure the team is successful on and off the court has been noticed by the underclassmen on the team. 

“I feel like it’s hard sometimes for the juniors to take that responsibility in stepping up, but I know they’re really trying,” sophomore Macy Wyatt (#30) said. “Last year, the seniors had a saying, ‘better everyday,’ and I think that the juniors this year are doing such a good job of still being true to this message and enforcing it within the team throughout the season.”

These juniors give their all and step up the most that they can, but not having seniors on the team actively affects the dynamic of the team on the court. 

“In my opinion, the biggest way our team gets affected by not having any seniors really has to do with the experience,” freshman Lauren Dean (#14) said. “The seniors we had last year were really good players and very experienced. This year we had quite a few players come up from JV and they’re good, but they aren’t as experienced on being varsity and handling the pressures varsity comes with, me included.” 

Not only is the dynamic on the court affected, but the bonds and relationships these teammates have with each other is affected too. 

“We don’t do that much as a team as of right now,” Dean said. “We’ve only had one team dinner and I think if we had seniors on the team we would be more united and it would’ve helped us bond with each other more and build concrete relationships off the court.”

To help with the problem, the juniors strive to encourage their fellow teammates to participate in open and active communication. 

“I think we’re doing well in being vocal when trying to lead the freshmen and sophomores on our team,” Guinn said. “Being vocal about things we need to do better on the court and talking about other stuff going on in our lives like grades and other basketball related things, really lets all of us get to know each other and connect with one another to build the relationships we want.”

For current juniors that are becoming seniors next year, stepping into that leadership role doesn’t seem so daunting anymore. 

“Having this year to embrace the role of a senior will help us better lead the incoming freshmen next year and just overall be that senior we always wanted ourselves to lead us,” Ravi said.