This was a solid step forward, and the step came with a young team. That step was a positive sign for Cathedral High School girls basketball, with the 2023-2024 season a year of improvement in what Head Coach Lisa Finn said was a season of transition. Youth was served, and it was served in encouraging fashion. “I really enjoyed this group,” Finn said. Irish girls basketball in 2023-2024 finished 12-12, turning in strong showings against multiple strong teams – and losing to Bishop Chatard in the final game of the City Tournament, 45-44, in overtime. They then lost to a strong Lawrence North team in the first round of the Section 10, Class 4A tournament. “They came out literally hitting every single shot they took,” he said of Lawrence North. “We just couldn't recover from it. It was good for our girls to see that, though. “I say to a lot of them, ‘We don't really have a lot of people in our program right now on this day that can compete with that level of competition. That's where we need to be by next year.’ We’re trying to get some of them to understand like what they need to work on and where they need to be.’’ The Irish improved from a 11-13 record in 2022-2023 despite losing Indiana All-Star Layla Gold, and also pushed multiple strong teams to close losses. “I don't think the record tells the whole story because there were so many games – four, at least – I could think of off the top of my head that we probably should have won, or at least put ourselves in a position to win,” Finn said. “We really didn’t know how things were going to go when we played some of those tougher teams. I was pleasantly surprised. We were still just trying to get some of those girls to buy in, to understand how much better they could have been in some areas. “But for the most part I was really happy.” The Irish in ’23-24 were led by strong senior leaders: Forward Taylor Lewis, who has signed with Villanova to play volleyball, and guard/forward Catherine Cline – who has signed with Loyola University Chicago to play soccer. “I just love both of those kids,” Finn said. “They both signed their letter of intent for their other sport before basketball season even started. That just says so much about their character and what kind of people they are. It makes me really, really sad to see them go. Those girls are just winners, they know how to go hard and they're just great kids. I'm just glad that they stuck around for so long when they didn't really have to, and really there was nothing to gain for them. “Because those girls were such good leaders, we got a lot of buy-in from the young kids. That will be really, really good moving forward. They understand expectations and they got a firsthand look at how hard it is to compete against the teams that we play. Hopefully it will motivate a lot of them to put the work in in the offseason.” The 2023-2024 Irish girls were led by: *Junior guard Jaeda Wilson, who averaged 12.7 points and 3.0 rebounds. *Taylor Lewis (12.0 points per game, 10.4 rebounds per game). *Cline (3.8 ppg, 4.1 rpg). *Junior guard Abby Beasley (4.6 ppg, 3.2 assists per game). *Junior guard Tianna Guy (7.0 ppg, 2.8 rpg). *Junior guard Reaghan Gilmore (2.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg). *Sophomore forward Tatum Triggs (3.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg). Finn called defense “100 percent” the Irish’s strength in 2023-2024, and said this was perhaps the best defensive team in her five seasons as the Irish’s head coach. “We played so hard on defense,” Finn said. “We really lacked a scoring identity most of the season. People were like, ‘Oh, we have to actually try to score this year. We didn't really have to do that before.’ But the one thing that I think kept us in most games was defense. “We were not lighting the world on fire on the offensive end, but most of the time when we were in a game, we were keeping it in the forties, low fifties, and putting ourselves in a chance to win with defense.” And Finn said with 16 players on the jayvee and freshman programs, the future indeed of Irish girls basketball is bright. “The majority of our starters were just kids that worked hard and wanted to play for their school, and that was good,” Finn said. “We had a ton of youngsters, so we definitely are in a good spot for the next couple of years. I think we’ll have a good base to build on. It'll be good.”