The East High Lady Thunderbirds have clearly established that they belong in the top teams in the state. For the third year in a fow, the East girls lost in the state title game. Only Gillette can claim more success, and the Camels seem to be the one team that can upend the T-Birds..

The T-Birds suffered their fourth loss of the year earlier in the season, dropping a 82-54 game to the Lady Camels. The team was disappointed in their performance and knew they needed to do more to beat the Camels.

“I was disappointed that we lost by so much and how four of our starters fouled out,” said senior Kayla Evans. “We realized the team needs to work on pushing themselves much harder in practice. The whole team is going to make next time better by playing together and passing the ball around more and focusing on the team defense.”

The losses opened the T-birds eyes just in time for a huge win over Central High School, 54-37.

The Thunderbirds kept the Indians scoreless for almost the entire second quarter and, at the end of the game, lifted up the Randy Brady Memorial Trophy in victory.

The Lady Thunderbirds closed the season with a win against South High, 52-39, and then dominated Laramie, 65-22, on Senior Night.

“This was a great way for our seniors to go out,” East senior Ashton Brodahl said in an interview with WyoSports.net.

At Regionals, the Lady T-Birds squeaked by Sheridan, 40-35, and conquered Gillette in the championship, 53-46.

At the 4A State East rolled over Rock Springs, 40-30. Sophomore post Sierra Stellern came off the bench to lead the Lady Thunderbirds with 10 points and seven rebounds.

“Every time we play Rock Springs in the first round, it is always a difficult game,” said Brodahl in an interview with WyoSports.net, who had nine points and seven rebounds. “We come in knowing what we need to do, but sometimes don’t execute as much, and it takes a while.

The Thunderbirds then moved on to face Sheridan and Wyoming’s Gatorade Player of the Year Robbi Ryan. East held Ryan to four points in a 51-47 T-Bird victory.

Beating Sheridan set up another game with Gillette for East, only this time with the state title on the line. The Lady Camels beat East 69-48 for the title in 2013, while East lost 33-28 to Casper Natrona in the final last year.

After a foul-filled first half, East went to halftime down by a bucket, 26-24. To make matters worse, East star defender Kayla Evans went down in the first quarter with a severe ankle sprain.

The Thunderbirds came out from halftime on fire and took a brief lead in the third quarter until Gillette went on a 13-0 run.

“I think we did really well,” said senior Justine Hirsig. “We were really close, but we didn’t shoot the ball well.”

The T-Birds never got closer than 10 points the rest of the game and fell to the Camels, 66-51, finishing at 23-5.

“We didn’t play defense that well,” continued Justine. “Kayla got hurt so that hurt us. I think we did well, making it three years in a row, but it could have been better.”