Over the last decade it’s hard to argue that any program has achieved the level of success Wyoming East has. The Lady Warriors have played in seven straight Class AA state championship games and seven of the last nine total.
They come into the 2024-25 season as the reigning two-time state champs, having cemented dynasty status. But they’ve got their sights set high. Only once in Wyoming County history has a program won three consecutive state championships, a feat achieved by the Mullens boys teams from 1982-84.
For all the success achieved across multiple sports at Wyoming East, no program has ever won three titles in a row. Now it’s the Lady Warriors’ turn to tackle that challenge.
“I think it’d be pretty special, but it’s not something that’s really thought about,” East head coach Ryan Davidson said. “
I don’t think I have to talk about it because they know. You can’t fool them. They know what’s going on. They know it’s important to me and it’s important to them but I don’t wanna dwell on it much because there’s enough pressure in these things to build on pressure here. So, let’s just let’s just play one game at a time.”
The Lady Warriors did graduate two-time Class AA all-state captain Maddie Clark, the only player in program history to play in four state championship games and win three. But the train keeps rolling.
“Maddie was the picture of consistency,” Davidson said. “
You knew what you were gonna get from her any time. So that is the thing this year is getting these girls to understand that being good one day and decent the next won’t cut it. We need to be great every single day and I think that they taken on that challenge. It’s about experience. 
You can’t fool these girls. You’ve played in three state championship games. I mean, what are you gonna tell them? 
So, for them, it’s just work at it every day and get better every day. Understand that good’s not good enough for us. We look for special every year.”
Among the returners are all-state co-captian Cadee Blackburn, all-stater Abi Baker and four players who started at various points last season in Alivia Monroe, Kyndal Lusk, Kenna Price and Gabby Cameron. Four of those players started in last year’s Class AA title game and all six saw action in the fourth quarter. Much will be expected of them in the title defense.
“I think they worked their butts off in the offseason,” Davidson said. “I think everybody on this team is better than they were last year individually and it’s because the people that came before them. They saw what it took. 
I think that may be our best thing right now is that we’ve had success for so long that they see what it is and they’ve seen the ones that came before them. They know what it looks like and they know what’s expected. So I expect them to lead the next group the same way that they were led before. And I’m already seeing it with some new girls that we have are looking up to them and like, ‘Oh, that’s how hard we work. 
I thought I worked hard till I got here.'”
Managing expectations and not getting caught under the pressure will be key for the Lady Warriors. Winning one title isn’t easy, let alone three.
“I think we deal with complacency every day,” Davidson said. “That’s the thing that probably scares me the most. For us, it’s try to get a little bit better every day and the whole cliché thing of being better every day. For us, it really is about there’s a lot of things we got to work on. I think that they’re smart enough to know what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, and where we stand right now. We got a lot of work to do.”
Keeping the Lady Warriors honest will be another grueling schedule. The first three games are against state tournament teams from a year ago, two in Class AAA. January opens with a title game rematch against Williamstown before bouts with Class AAAA teams Huntington and University.
“All we gotta do is show them who’s next on the schedule and they know it’s gonna be hard,” Davidson said. “We all know it’s hard but if anything, last year we learned that it is hard. I think the more we push ourselves, the more prepared we are for those last 10 minutes. 
I think that’s who we are and that’s what we try to do.”
Davidson isn’t worried about the pressure. The expectations have been the same for the program for nearly a decade and this bunch has functioned just fine under them. The challenge is doing it again.
“I think our expectations stay the same,” Davidson said. “We’ve built the standard here to the point where we want to be able to compete on the last day. I think we’ve got enough talent and enough experience to do it. 
It’s just gonna be meshing it all together and figuring out how the pieces fit.”
