Suri Gourd (33) / Photos by Mojo Hill
Last season didn’t go the way the Indians would have liked.
Injuries befell a team already struggling with depth. Four Winds/Minnewaukan girls’ basketball, competing in a tough Class A, Region 2, only won five games. The Indians were eliminated by Grafton in the first round of the region tournament.
But that’s the past. The team graduated just one senior. Players have been able to work back to full strength over the spring and summer months.
“It’s great so far,” FW/M head coach Sean Gourd Sr. said. “Hopefully, we don’t run into that bug again. But the girls have been working hard in practice. We’ve been running a lot. A lot of conditioning. I’m pretty happy.”
The brightest spot amidst last year’s struggles was the continued progression of Suri Gourd, a daughter of Gourd Sr. She had already established herself as a starter while in eighth grade.
Even Gourd was hit by the injury bug early on, too. But she still managed to surpass 1,000 career points by the end of the season — a rarity for a freshman.
Gourd is excited for the road ahead.
“We only lost one senior, and that was really it. And everyone else is back and healthy,” she said. “So I think we’ve got a little bit more leaders on the team that are able to help us out in bigger situations. We’re not really a young team no more. We’ve got a lot of older seniors and juniors, and they have a lot of experience that I think will help us.”
The Indians have no shortage of players, with 16 on the varsity roster this year. Four of them are seniors.
Early in the season, they’re trying to find a configuration that gels around Gourd, the point guard.
“One thing I need to do is develop the bench a little more,” Gourd Sr. said. “Just kind of seeing what works right now. In practice, I’ve been mixing it up, but it’s coming along, I think.”
Cailee Hanson, who was the second-most prolific scorer on the team last year, is back for her senior season. Fellow seniors Dru Longie and Gracie Jackson stepped up at times in the season-opening Lake Region Invitational, as well.
“Dru has been shooting pretty good this past couple weeks, and I have a lot of confidence in her,” Gourd said. “And Gracie has been a good leader on and off the court. She does everything right. So I think just those two together, they’re good leadership people to have.”
Gourd Sr. said that there’s a lot on the line for the seniors. This is their last go-round of high school basketball, and they want to make the most of it.
“They want to finish their career strong,” Gourd Sr. said. “Dru’s a gym rat. She improved tremendously from last year to this year. Gracie is always in the gym. … She’s doing her job.”
While the rest of the team continues to make progress, Gourd leads the way. She opened the season with 74 points over three games in the Lake Region Invitational in Devils Lake. She led FW/M to the tournament championship, losing only to defending Class B state champion Benson County.
Gourd is coming off a freshman season where she averaged 20.8 points per game. She added 6.2 rebounds per game, 88 assists and 82 steals.
Through five games so far this season, she’s averaging 30.4 points. She set a career high with an enormous 48-point performance this past Monday.
“I know she’s a sophomore, but she’s got those expectations on herself,” Gourd Sr. said. “And I do, too. She’s ready for it.”
Her early-season dominance, combined with solid contributions from players like Hanson and Longie, has helped FW/M to four wins in its first five games. The Indians only won four games all of last season.
Gourd, who was already a great player, has spent the entire offseason working to get better. She played for two AAU teams this summer, her regular one and a native one. She said she also spent a lot of time in the weight room.
“I think that my mid-range has definitely gotten better,” Gourd said. “I’ve definitely gotten a lot stronger and quicker. That’s just coming from the weight room every single day.”
Gourd’s AAU season took her to places like Las Vegas, Arizona and Chicago.
“Basically all over the country,” Gourd Sr. said. “And just played a lot of really, really good teams and really good players. You play good teams like that, it gets you better. I always tell her, if you want to get better, you always got to play people who are better than you. And I think that really helped her a lot, just that level of competition that she has to go out and compete against with that group. And it translates.”
Once the AAU season ended, Gourd was in the weight room four or five times per week. Since the regular season started, she’s cut it back to about two or three times.
“She’s either lifting or shooting or doing some kind of skill work. She’s always working,” Gourd Sr. said. “She’s the first one in, she’s the last one [out] every night. And she’s definitely got some big dreams. Big goals. And she’s just all business out there.”
Gourd could already play a pretty dynamic game in the paint. But now she has some more physicality in her game, as a benefit of becoming stronger.
“With the lifting, once she sees the results, she likes it, so she just keeps going,” Gourd Sr. said. “And that goes a long way with girls’ basketball. Being stronger, it helps you through the contact and powering through things.”
Gourd also attempted a flurry of three-pointers in the Lake Region Invitational. She hit nine triples in her 48-point game. It’s another area she’s been working tirelessly to improve.
“She’s getting stronger with that,” Gourd Sr. said. “And she’s confident. She puts up four or five hundred shots a night, too, and it shows.”
Now, she and the Indians will try to carry it all into the thick of competition. They have a tough road ahead, with strong teams like Carrington, Thompson and Devils Lake in their region.
But their sights are set on making the first state tournament in the history of the FW/M girls’ basketball program.
