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On Jan. 24, the seniors on the girls’ varsity basketball team celebrated a bittersweet victory: they beat Lake Park High School 60-38 at their last home game of their high school careers.

With 11 seniors on the team, the class of 2015 has made history by being the largest group of seniors still playing basketball, overcoming the previous high of 10 in 2004, the year Candace Parker graduated from Central.

Senior night kicked off with a starting five of seniors Gaby Williams, Bridget Roth, Kathryn Aemmer, Susanna Tanck and Jada Haynes. These girls, whom Head Coach Andy Nussbaum referred to as the “Bench Bunch,” rarely see the court, and were excited to play one last time at home.

“I think this was the most fun game I’ve ever played in my entire life,” Williams said. “I never thought I would feel this about senior night, it was definitely surreal. These four years have passed by really quickly. I’m just excited I got to play.”

Throughout the game, every senior had a chance to play and the team made an effort to make sure everyone scored, even those who don’t usually see the court.

“It’s hard to do what [the players who don’t play a lot] are doing,” Nussbaum said. “To come to practice every day, be expected to practice hard, to be expected to care as much as everyone else, and then to not get any playing time [as] reward. That just shows a lot about the character of those girls and the friendships they have with the team.”

All eleven seniors have been role models for the younger girls in the Central basketball program, including sophomore Erin Moran who is on the JV team this year.

“[We have] big shoes to fill and [the seniors] are great motivation,” Moran said.

After the game ended, the seniors all gave a short speech reminiscing their experience on Central basketball.

“I have made lifelong memories and I honestly could not ask for a better team,” Co-Captain Emily Kraft said in her speech.

“I really have grown as a player and a person and this basketball experience has been so much fun,” Co-Captain Haley Minick said.

Instead of a normal speech, Jada Haynes decided to recite a poem about her experience, calling out each member of the team for something memorable they had done. Her ending line brought laughter from everyone in the gym: “With 11 seniors, we beat Candace Parker in something this time.”

After the last person, Lisa Tassi, gave her speech, the team whispered amongst each other, telling Tassi to give their “team confession.”

“[At Loras College in Iowa,] we decided to explore because we had some time before our game and we saw some people sledding so we decided to go sledding,” Tassi said. “So we went to the cafeteria like college students and we stole some trays. We were gonna slide down on the trays. So we got out there and the people let us borrow some of their sleds and we went sledding before our basketball game.”

This was met by lots of laughter from the team, truly showing how close these 11 girls had grown throughout the course of their four years on basketball together.