Reported by Brad Penner STATEWIDE Correspondent

 
[Anncr]"Here come the Lady Cardinals. "
In South Sioux City, girls' high school basketball is a big time entertainment.
[Fan purchasing a ticket]"Two adults and one student. "
Fans line up to fill the gym they call the mini dome. For the girls on the court, it's home sweet home.
[Katie Robinette, South Sioux Sophomore] "It's really like a state championship atmosphere just because it's so loud and there's so many people and our gym is so big and you're off the floor sort of. It's like a state championship. "
State championships are something they know a little about in South Sioux City. They have won four straight Class B titles. The Lady Cardinals put South Sioux on the map.
[Kelly Flynn, Head Coach] "We did get that once in a while where are you guys South Sioux City, Iowa? And here we were down playing in the Nebraska state tournament, you know. No, we're legit. We're in Nebraska. I think South Sioux is just like anybody else. We're very supportive of the home teams. If you give them a good product and give them a winner, they're even more supportive. "
Support is a word you hear a lot when the topic is South Sioux City girls' basketball. Support from fans, parents, coaches, and the players themselves.
[Nicole Oliver, South Sioux Junior] "I love being with our team. And when we win, it's so fun. I don't think, like, people that don't play, they'll never know."
These are girls who love to win but they don't live to win. They live to play hard and do their best every time they step on the floor.
[Scott Ellison, fan] "It's fun to watch the girls play basketball. They play almost like a boys' team. They intense. They're good at what they do. They're disciplined. You can tell by the crowd for a girls' game, they get a great turnout. They're just fun to watch play basketball."
[Coach Flynn] "Today we're going to go over a quick little all-out shootout where we try to move for five minutes. We got five minutes on the clock. We want to try to just move around, try to work that sweat up..."
Kelly Flynn has been at South Sioux City since he graduated from college. He has been the head girls' basketball coach for 14 years. This was the first practice of the season but Coach Flynn didn't have to do a lot of explaining. His players knew what to do.
[Coach Flynn] "Most of the drills I have set up today, the girls have done them before. They have been doing them as they come up through the program. I'm thinking that we'll be able to just get in and go with it."
These are the kinds of drills they do every day. They emphasize the basics.
[Coach Flynn] "Ready to race? "
[Players]"Yeah."
[Coach Flynn]"Going to ten. Ready, set, go. "
Flynn turns practices into competitions. Who can make the best passes. Who can make the most shots. Who can outhustle their teammate. Even a returning all-stater like Nicole Oliver knows that no one's spot on the team is secure.
[Oliver] "Somebody else is practicing and you're not, then they're going to move above you and you know that. So it's like the next person is always practicing harder."
[Ed Wiltgen, Assistant Coach] "We have girls that just seem like they all want to work hard and not let somebody younger come up and pass them up so once they get up there, they know they've got to keep working hard. There is some girls right here next year that if those girls on varsity aren't working hard that may step in and be starters next year."
Ed Wiltgen specializes in coaching defense. South Sioux City teams are known for aggressive defense.
[Wiltgen] "It's basically just hard work. You know, we work with the girls from the time they're in fifth grade. We really try to teach them the game, not so much intricate offense or an intricate defense but how to play the game, how to anticipate. "
South Sioux City has been blessed with talented athletes during their championship seasons. Several have gone onto play college basketball. Charlie Rogers is a junior at the University of Nebraska. Candace Blackbird is her freshman teammate.
[Charlie Rogers] "The biggest thing I learned from high school about college was the amount of work it takes. When I was in high school and even junior high school, whatever, we put a lot of time in but it was never like we thought about that it was time. It was just, you know, fun. It was what we did. We were really fortunate when this all started to come about to have a lot of, you know, good athletes together at the same time but then we also had a lot of parents who worked a lot for us to put us through camps and to come to our games and to do all the little things that you kind of take for granted when you are a kid."
Blackbird remembers what it was like when she started playing.
[Candace Blackbird] "I wasn't very good. Like I was really tall and I wasn't coordinated when I was in fifth grade but yeah, it was a lot of fun. All girls they want to play."
[Rick Farrell]"Cindy, there you go."
Coaches like Rick Farrell helped Candace Blackbird blossom.
[Blackbird] "He has been my coach since I was in fifth grade. I have grown up with his daughter so I'm really close to him. He's a super guy. And he just -- he loves women's basketball, girls' basketball and that was his life forever."
[Rick Farrell] "You can ask Candy one time in practice I made her sit in the corner and do her homework before I let her join practice so we make sure that they understand what's important and why we're going to school, you know, academics is the real reason and you don't have athletics without academics."
Rick Farrell helped start the Jaycees-sponsored youth basketball program for boys and girls. It's grown to include children as young as kindergarten. These 7th and 8th graders play on traveling teams.
[Wiltgen] "We've got an 8th grade team and 7th grade team and last year they probably played around 50 games over the winter, basically from November through April."
Amy and Ashley Robinette play on the 7th grade team. Their older sister, Katie, is a sophomore all-stater on the varsity. Rick Robinette has coached all his girls and an older son as well.
[Rick Robinette] "It puts some stress on things at times. It gets real hectic on the weekends. You're trying to make two or three games here, a game here and a game there. We end up split up a lot going to different games. They do have to be responsible as far as getting their homework done and doing those kinds of things, too, so they can come here and practice for an hour and a half or two tonight."
Barb Flynn knows what it's like. She coaches her 6th and 8th grade daughters and has two sons in high school who play. She also has an inside angle on the South Sioux program since she is married to the head coach.
[Barb Flynn] "Kelly talks about that a lot when he talks about you have to surround yourself with good people and he has really done that all the way through. From the freshman level up, he's got coaches that are so supportive and they're so good. I don't think you would ever catch one of them where they don't believe what the other one is doing and they all do the same thing."
[Wiltgen] "We have a great group of parents that are willing to do whatever Coach Flynn asks them to do. He has little clinics with the parents that are coaches in the youth leagues and they go over our defensive strategy, what we want them to do defensively, what we want to do offensively as far as pushing it up the floor. The girls get started basically at about the fifth grade level and they start doing the things that we're doing at the varsity level."
Parents and volunteer youth coaches get a lot of credit from the high school coaches and it's a complement that's quickly returned.
[Robinette] "This wasn't something that they just showed up in the gym and everyone was there. They work an unbelievable number of hours every year."
Hard work, long hours, and a love of basketball. It's a reoccurring theme in South Sioux City. It will lead these girls back to this gym nearly every day this summer.
[Coach Flynn] "We're even saying hey, it's not like you have to go there every day but they want to. It's not like they're being forced to. It's where their friends are going to be. They come and we got three different games going. One here, one here, and one over there. It's 100 degrees in here. It's just a hot box. No air conditioning in here in the summertime but they come and play."
[Kylee White, Senior]" I think the main thing is hard work. Like everyone on our team works really hard especially on the offseason with lifting and we go to lots of team camps and open gym every day. We will be there the whole day working hard. I think hard work is the main thing that you need and dedication because you have to be dedicated to the sport. You have to like it, too. Because if you don't like it, then there's not any point in really playing."
The future of South Sioux City girls basketball begins with the dreams of these little girls. That's the way it was for Katie just a few short years ago.
[Katie Robinette] "Me and my friends would sit and just watch the game. We knew all the girls and all their numbers and their positions and everything. "
[Kylee White] "When I was younger and I looked up to the older people and it was so cool when they talked to me or say hi to me and I want those little kids to have the same feeling, like, that they're important, too. "
[Blackbird] "You become a role model whether you like it or not. They're looking at you. They see you in school. Our town is not that big so they see you in town and stuff. You have more pride in things that you do an you want to do better just to help the little girls and stuff. I think that's helped."
These girls are already thinking about the state championships they will win. Expectations shared by a lot of folks in the crowd.
[Charlie Rogers] "There's pressure but I think it's positive pressure. Like real pressure in life is, you know, somebody telling you are going to die or something. So this kind of pressure is good. I think it's very good for kids to learn at an early age what competition is, you know. And the parents, of course, want their kids to win and want their kids to be successful but at the same time, I see a lot of learning going on. I see when kids lose in the Jaycees league that I refereed for four years, when I see kids losing, I see parents teaching them how to lose an how to be a good sport. "
[Robinette] "It's been really good for the girls as far as building their self confidence and gives them something to be active in that is successful, that they can hang their hat on."
[Kylee White] "This is affecting me for my whole life because it taught me about teamwork and hard work and dedication and, like, playing in three state championships, hopefully four, that's like something that people hardly ever get to do in their whole life and it's just like the awesomest feeling in the whole world."
[Coach Flynn] "If you pay a price there's -- then all of a sudden losing hurts a little more and winning is a little bit more important. I think with our girls they paid a pretty good price when they come into the basketball program, you know, they come with a little bit higher level-- higher level of expectation."
In South Sioux City, the girls' games are taped and broadcast on the local cable TV system. The games are often lopsided victories. The players know they're a part of something special.
[Heidi Fuscher, Senior] "Everything. It's so wonderful. The crowd and the band and all my teammates and the court. You just know when you come in here, it's just like such a wonderful atmosphere to play in. You just really get hyped up and you're just ready to play."
[Anne Hulse, Senior] "We all have to work together here on the court and away from the court. We all have to stay friends and stay close and keep together as a team no matter what we're doing if it's on the court or away."
That togetherness extends to the next generation of South Sioux players.
[Anne Hulse] "I mean they get started early and they play together so they're more used to it and once they get up here, they'll be so good. I'm excited to come back and watch them."
The odds may catch up to South Sioux City some day but no one here expects that to happen soon.

Captioning by Nebraska Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .