ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Lady Hub varsity basketball team found immediate success in head coach Ryan McQuade’s first season at the helm, finishing only two games under the .500 mark and totaling the most victories by any varsity team in a single season since the 2012-13 campaign. With all three Lady Hub basketball teams totaling double-digit wins this winter, McQuade has set high goals for next season.

“Looking back over the last couple of years, we haven’t won a lot of games,” McQuade said. “Having our senior class buy in and become the leaders of our program really helped us start on the right foot, especially because we have so many young girls in our program… Getting to that 20-win mark will definitely be one of our goals next season. We want to finish in the upper half of the conference like we did this season and we want to compete for a regional championship, which is goal that we want to have for every season.”

Rochelle finished with a 15-17 overall record while placing fourth in the Interstate 8 Conference with a 7-7 record at the varsity level this season. The Lady Hubs went 1-1 during the IHSA 3A Rochelle Regional tournament, defeating Plano before falling against state-title contender Sycamore in the semifinal round. Rochelle split the conference season series with LaSalle-Peru while sweeping Morris, Plano and Sandwich.

“Our seniors brought great leadership,” McQuade said. “They had a lot of experience at the varsity level which helped us a lot this season. They really did a great job of sharing their experiences with our younger girls and that helps us because we have a really solid freshman class and a really solid sophomore class.”

The Lady Hubs will graduate six seniors from the varsity roster including four-year varsity players Zoey Tabor, Josie Lundquist and Lucy Bunger as well as three-year varsity players Jordin Dickey, Abby Luxton and two-year varsity player Adriannah Davis-Carter. Rochelle will have several players eligible to return next season including junior Torrin Nantz, who qualified for the IHSA Sectional 3-Point Shootout. Sophomores Alivia Henkel, Sydney Tabor and freshman Kendyl Darby also played a lot of varsity minutes this winter.

“I thought girls like Sydney and Kendyl really progressed as the year went on and that’s really going to benefit us going into next season,” McQuade said. “We have some talented juniors coming back next season as well and I really like the mixture of youth and experience we’ll have. We want to build our program at the younger level and I’m really looking forward to our future and the progress we’ll make.”