Briggsdale girls basketball knows what heartbreak feels like.
After finishing their 2021-22 regular season with a perfect record, the Falcons eyed their first-ever state championship at Class 1A. Flatirons Academy, however, had other plans. In that final game, their 25th of the season, the Bison dashed their dreams when they won the state crown with a 52-43 final. Briggsdale finished the season 24-1.
It lost five seniors to graduation right after.
“That was super tough, obviously, to lose the state championship game,” head coach Colin Nicklas said. “But the hardest part was losing those kids. … They literally started putting it together since kindergarten, first grade. … So to lose those girls and send them out that way, it was pretty tough. It’s something they dreamed about when they were little, they started to imagine when they were in junior high.”
The spectacle of it all may have gotten to the Falcons, who have been to the state championship three times since 2008 but have never broken through with a title.
“I was a little nervous at first going into it just because the place was so big, but I had a lot of fun just playing with my teammates and my family,” junior Jenna Krise said. “It was just a lot of fun and the competition was extremely high.”
And while they lost their star scorer in Kylie Krise, who averaged 21.3 points per game and 6.8 rebounds per game, they return their No. 2 ace with Jenna Krise. She comes back a year after putting up 15.6 points per game, 3.7 rebounds per game, 4.7 assists per game and three steals per game.
The Falcons will look to senior Peyton Nicklas, who averaged 5.8 points per game as a junior, to step into a leadership role as well.
“We’ve been playing together a lot since probably kindergarten. A big weakness is we lost a lot of seniors last year, so we’re rebuilding and have to find players to fill those spots, but it’ll be good,” Peyton Nicklas said. “Obviously, it would be nice to get back to another state championship and give it another run. But right now the focus is rebuilding and finding our base and who we are this year compared to last year.”