By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Seaman girls basketball coach Matt Tinsley knew his team was likely to have to deal with considerable growing pains early in the 2025-2026 season.
Junior Cara Beaton (15) led Seaman with 13 points in Tuesday's 64-41 season-opening UKC loss to Piper while Faith McCallop (20) led all scorers with 24 points. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
After all, the Vikings graduated four very talented senior starters off a team that advanced to the Class 5A championship game in back-to-back seasons, including a state title in 2024.
And those youthful struggles showed up in a hurry in No. 6-ranked Seaman's season-opener at Seaman against No. 5 Piper.
Seaman girls basketball coach Matt Tinsley talks to his team during Tuesday's 64-41 UKC loss to Piper. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
But after spotting the Pirates a 30-5 advantage midway through the second quarter, Seaman outscored the visitors 36-34 the rest of the night while displaying a lot of positives that Tinsley believes will pay off as the season goes along.
"Take out the first quarter and I think we finally started to breathe after that,'' Tinsley said. "Then we were finally able to relax a little bit. I was just trying to get the girls to relax and calm down. The game looked like it was 100 miles per hour for them, and we expected that.
"A lot of these girls, out of the 12 that played, nine of them that was kind of their first taste of varsity action against a good team.''
The Vikings cut their deficit to from 25 to 17 points by halftime (33-16) and the Vikings got as close as 13 (51-38) early in the fourth stanza before Piper pulled away again down the stretch.
"I told the girls that there's a lot than we can learn from this game,'' Tinsley said. "We've just got to make sure we're taking steps forward and we can't afford to take steps back. This loss is going to be a win for us down the road and I'll be patient with them, but we've got to compete and they're finding out that in varsity basketball you've got to compete for 32 minutes.''
Seaman reeled off 24 straight wins a year ago before losing to St. Thomas Aquinas in the state final while Piper went 18-5 last season with three losses to the Vikings, including the state quarterfinal.
Piper senior Faith McCallop led all scorers with 24 points while junior Cara Beaton paced Seaman with 13 points.
Eight other Vikings cracked the scoring column in the opener, but none with more than five points.
Seaman will be off Friday before hosting Lansing in a UKC game next Tuesday.
PIPER GIRLS 64, SEAMAN 41
Piper 20 13 18 13 -- 64
Seaman 5 11 15 10 -- 41
Piper (1-0, 1-0) – Benedetto 7-12 0-0 16, McCallop 10-24 2-2 24, Hollinshed 1-5 2-2 4, Walker 1-5 0-0 3, Gerber 3-5 3-4 9, McPherson 2-5 0-0 4, Teasley 1-1 0-0 3, Hibler 0-0 1-2 1, Kolenda 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 25-60 8-10 64.
Seaman (0-1, 0-1) – Ketron 1-3 0-0 3, Dreher 2-4 1-4 5, Beaton 4-5 3-4 13, Gragg 1-6 2-2 5, Puvogel 2-1 0-0 4, Frickey 1-5 0-0 2, Spencer 1-2 0-0 2, Stallbaumer 0-0 0-0 0, Zurmely 1-2 0-0 3, Ayres 2-3 0-0 4, Alfen 0-1 0-0 0, Bruns 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-33 6-10 41.
3-point goals – Piper 6 (Benedetto 2, McCallop 2, Teasley, Walker), Seaman 5 (Beaton 2, Ketron, Gragg, Zurmely). Total fouls – Piper 12, Seaman 9. Fouled out – none. Technical fouls – none.
