Redmond High sophomore Katie Hartman said it’s been a rough season for her basketball squad in 4A Kingco, but the girls have become stronger each game and the Mustangs hope to finish with some victories.

“We’re so young, so every day we’re in practice, we see big jumps in improvement,” said head coach Ashley Graham, whose team was 2-10 in the tough Kingco league and 5-12 overall at press time.

Seniors Sierra Craig and Maddie Egberg and sophomore Teagyn Ohrt have put up some solid scoring numbers during the season and Hartman and freshman Kiki Milloy have been forces inside, each with an average of about 10 rebounds per game.

Assistant coach Mackenzie Flynn said that Hartman (5-foot-10) and Milloy (5-foot-11) are both relentless, tough players who have a knack for going for loose basketballs. Graham said that Ohrt (5-foot-11) can score inside and outside and she’s hard to defend; she also possesses long arms and can tip the ball to teammates. Ohrt has averaged about 8.4 points a game.

Graham likes that she’s got a well-rounded team on tap led by captains Craig, Egberg and senior Kate Henderson.

“I’m all about that team basketball and sharing the ball and working it around, so that’s big for us,” Graham said, adding that if her team can display 32 minutes of solid basketball each night, they’ll succeed on the scoreboard.

For Milloy, the keys are: “Just playing hard and playing smart and also just communicating and playing as a team.”

Redmond put it all together at the 2015 Surf ’N Slam Tournament in San Diego over Christmas break when the Mustangs won the Slam division championship and notched a 3-0 record. Hartman was most valuable player of the division and Craig and sophomore Andrea Dang made the all-tournament team.

“I think it was a really good bonding experience for our whole team because that was our first travel tournament together,” said Craig, while Graham noted that the experience gave the Mustangs a boost of confidence and spurred them on to play tough and be competitive.

Craig said the Mustangs earned a hard-fought 48-42 victory over Battle Ground in the final game in San Diego. Battle Ground came out stronger than Redmond expected and Craig and company had a serious talk at halftime that helped turn things around.

According to Craig, the conversation went something like this: “We’re not losing, we have to win. We came down here for this and we just gotta pull together as a team and go turn it on.” The Mustangs’ effort and energy prevailed in the end.

Hartman added that it’s been a memorable season, one in which the girls are playing hard, having fun and making the best of every situation.