Hays girls cap off program transition to WAC champs

Great Bend’s Sadie Spray named WAC Player of Year

Four seasons ago, Len Melvin and his staff took the reins of the Hays High School girls’ basketball program and inherited a team that had gone 6-15 the year before (2020).

Melvin, though, was no newcomer to coaching and not new to Hays High, having coached several sports there in the early 2000’s before leaving the profession to help run a local family business.

But things changed for Melvin, who was asked to take the head coaching position, and now has the Lady Indians competing at a much higher level, capped off by a 2023-2024 Western Athletic Conference championship.

Not only did the Lady Indians win the WAC title, but they swept all eight games in the double round-robin format, topping tough teams from Great Bend and Liberal twice along with sweeps of Dodge City and Garden City.

“We’ve been fortunate to have some good strong classes stacked on top of each other, so we’ve got a good group of juniors, sophomores and freshmen,” said Melvin, who was chosen WAC Coach of the Year by his peers. 

He is the first to credit his staff, which includes former coaches and college players. 

“I’m blessed to have a staff that has the knowledge to help contribute to every aspect of our program,” Melvin said. “In this way, we can break our practices down and focus on different areas and all the staff know exactly what needs to be accomplished.”

The challenge for Melvin in the first couple of years was to impress upon his players that the “We” mindset is more important than the “Me” concept in playing a team sport.

“I think the challenge is sitting down and talking with each player and discuss what their role on the team will be and needs to be,” Melvin said. “Some will be scorers. Some will be rebounders. Some will be defensive specialists. You must get all the pieces to fit together to be successful.”

The starting point for Melvin was the emphasis on defense.

“Collectively, we knew that if we were going to turn the program around we had to start with defense,” Melvin said. “If you can be a good defensive team, it allows you to compete against teams that perhaps have more talent than you do. The goal is to have your talent catch up after a couple of years, and we’ve started to do that.”

The evolution began in the 2021-22 season when the Lady Indians went 13-9, then a small increase in the 2022-23 campaign to 14-8 and then the just recently-completed season of 16-6 and an appearance in the Class 5A sub-state championship game.

A road loss of 38-34 to Wichita-Bishop Carroll prevented the Indians from reaching the state tournament, but Melvin said the team is closing the gap with other elite teams.

“We had the third hardest schedule in 5A, according to MaxPreps,” Melvin said. “Our next step is to qualify for state so the girls can taste it, smell it, and then move up to where you know you can go to state and win games.”

The 2023-24 season was boosted early when the Lady Indians opened their WAC season on Dec. 22 with a game against nemesis Liberal, a team they had not beaten for several years. They won that test, 60-55, and that propelled them to repeating a win at Liberal (59-49) and then sweeping another rival, Great Bend, 44-37 and 42-36. Liberal and Great Bend shared second place with 5-3 records.

“There’s a lot of good players and there are some great coaches in the WAC,” Melvin said. “Our schedule gives us a chance to know what good teams look like, but we’ve got to get ourselves in position to host a sub-state championship game. It is important to get your playoff games at home.”

And the other four teams in the WAC should be on the lookout as the Indians only graduate one senior, Brygette Ross, and she saw limited playing time.

“She’s an unbelievable young lady and was a leader for our younger girls,” Melvin said of Ross. “We are fortunate to have a lot of returners for next year, and I would expect us to be in the hunt again for WAC and postseason honors.”

WAC GIRLS PLAYER OF THE YEAR
SADIE SPRAY, GREAT BEND, SR./5-9 GUARD/FORWARD

For many, seven always seems like a magic or lucky number.

But for Sadie Spray and her Great Bend Lady Panther basketball teammates, seven was a number that they were stuck on and wanted to wash away that number in their final season of playing the sport together.

In a twist of irony, seven was also the number of seniors on this year’s Great Bend girls’ roster. For three straight seasons, the Lady Panthers could do no better than post a 7-win, 14-loss record.

Things finally broke in favor of Spray and her teammates this year, going 15-7 overall, tying for second place in the Western Athletic Conference with Liberal at 5-3 and reaching the Class 5A sub-state championship game before falling to a red-hot Emporia team, one game away from the state tournament.

Spray had been a mainstay for the Lady Panthers in each of her three previous seasons, and at times carried the team on her back with a 16.72 scoring average that earned her the votes from the WAC coaches to capture WAC Girls Player of the Year honors.

“That’s awesome and just ‘Wow’,” Spray said when informed of her award. “I think it’s kind of crazy because there are some really outstanding players in the WAC. I’m happy, but surprised.”

Spray is a 5-9 (in sneakers) combo guard who has signed to play with Washburn University next year. Washburn is an NCAA Division II school in Topeka that competes in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, one of the top conferences at that level. Other Kansas schools include Fort Hays State, Pittsburg State and Emporia State.

“Our main goal was to just get more than seven wins so getting twice that many has been an exciting time for our team,” Spray said. “We had the exact same team, and I think we just grew as individuals and we had a mentality of a family feeling that helped to get us over the hump. It meant a lot to all of us when we got the 8th win (against Dodge City).”

Spray is the first to credit her teammates and coaches for any individual success she has accomplished and said she will miss her teammates with whom she has played since elementary school.

She said she improved in almost every area of her offensive/defensive skills since her freshman season when she averaged a modest 7.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, and barely over 1 assist and steal per game. Her senior stats included 4.0 rebounds, 2.13 assists and 3.2 steals per game.

For her career, Spray went over the 1,000-point total, finishing with 1,090 (13.13 average) and totaled 357 rebounds (4.3), 136 assists (1.4) and 235 steals (2.83).

“I think one area of improvement has been my ability to get to the basket and to see the lanes and find a teammate,” Spray said. “My mid-range jumper is better and my threes are good, but could get better.”

On the defensive end, the steals are the area that show up the most on the stat sheet, averaging just under three for her career. She had her best stat in her junior year with 88 steals in 21 games (4.2).

When she arrives at Washburn next season, she will begin pursuing a career in the medical profession. However, she is uncertain as to which path in that career she will take.

Spray is joined on the WAC all-conference first team by Hays juniors Molly Martin and Katie Linenberger, Liberal senior Hailey Contreras and Liberal sophomore Shamari Lewis.

Second-team all-conference selections included senior Easha Potts of Dodge City, sophomore Zoe Winter of Hays, seniors Emilee Hall and Makenzie Premer of Great Bend and sophomore KJ Pinchon of Garden City.

Sadie Spray Career Statistics

YEAR	GAMES	POINTS	REBOUNDS	ASSISTS	STEALS
Senior	22	368	88	47	71
Junior	21	355	84	40	88
Sophomore	21	230	108	25	48
Freshman	19	137	77	24	28
TOTALS	83	1090	357	136	235

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Girls Basketball First Team All-Conference

	PLAYER	YEAR	SCHOOL
1	Molly Martin	11	Hays
2	Hailey Contreras	12	Liberal
3	Sadie Spray	12	Great Bend
4	Shamari Lewis	10	Liberal
5	Katie Linenberger	11	Hays

Girls Basketball Second Team All-Conference

	PLAYER	YEAR	SCHOOL
1	Easha Potts	12	Dodge City
2	Zoe Winter	10	Hays
3	Emilee Hall	12	Great Bend
4	Makenzie Premer	12	Great Bend
5	KJ Pinchen	10	Garden City