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Erin Reichle felt she had the ability to be Weber's top scoring option. She just needed to prove it — to herself, her teammates and anyone who doubted.
As the only returning starter this season, Reichle challenged herself to raise her scoring average, which already had doubled to 11 points in her junior season.
She proved every bit capable of living up to the challenge. Reichle, The Tribune's Class 5A MVP, averaged 22 points per game and scored nearly 44 percent of the Warriors' points this season.
"I definitely had more of a role to play," Reichle said. "I had to score more. I had wished for it and knew that I wanted to be a [20-point] scorer, but I didn't quite know it would become a reality. It was pretty cool."
The 5-foot-6 senior did it from long distance — her 42 3-pointers were fourth in Class 5A — and she did it on a nightly basis. She scored in double figures in every game this season, starting with a career-high 29 points in a season-opening victory against Hunter.
She scored at least 22 points in nine of the Warriors' 10 Region 1 games, and she scored a combined 47 points as Weber swept region champ Davis.
"I faced a lot of double teams, sometimes triple teams," Reichle said. "The defenses, especially as we got deeper into the season, got a lot harder to go up against."
About the only thing Reichle was unable to do was carry the Warriors (11-10) to the postseason. Weber finished 4-6 and in fifth place in the talented region.
Though she would have traded in some of the gaudy statistics for one last crack at the state tournament, Reichle has no regrets after the work she put in to raise her game.
"This was the year I worked the hardest," said Reichle, who also plays softball at Weber and will play basketball next season at Dixie State, "because it's the year I felt I would have the most impact for my team." —