Sycamore girls using summer to build toward bounce-back 2025-26 season

Last season was the first time the Sycamore girls didn’t win 20 games in a full season since 2012-13 and the Spartans’ lowest win total since 2007-08.

A shoulder injury to leading scorer Quinn Carrier played a role in the Spartans’ 8-23 season. It also was a very young squad with two seniors, neither of whom logged a lot of minutes.

But Carrier is back and the team is now a year more experienced after wrapping up their summer slate in June.

“It definitely set me back, but I’m ready to come back strong this season and show everybody the team we really are,” Carrier said. “A lot of people doubt us. I think it’s going to be exciting. I definitely think I need to be a leader this year and I’m ready to pick up that role.”

The Spartans had won regionals in five straight postseasons before last year, including their first supersectional berth during a 32-3 campaign in 2021-22. They’ve won eight regionals starting with the 2013-14 season.

Carrier led the team last year with 15.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. She said the team is hungry to show last year was just a hiccup.

“It definitely gives us the urge to play harder, show everyone that we are a good team,” the rising junior said. “Even though we’re young, we can beat teams and we’re ready to come out this season.”

Carrier and rising sophomore Sadie Lang (12.8 points per game) combined to score almost 60% of the Spartans’ points last year.

Finding a consistent third scoring option has been a major offseason focus for coach Adam Wickness.

The ninth-year head coach said Grace Amptmann and Macy Calendo have made strides in the offseason to become more consistent scorers.

“That’s really what we need to figure out,” Wickness said. “I don’t mind if they take turns doing it or they both do it on the same night, that helps us even more. But we need a consistent third option so teams can’t really gimmick us.”

Amptmann is a stretch power forward heading into her senior year after averaging 6.7 points per game last year. Calendo played just 20 games as a freshman last year, averaging 3.4 points per game.

No one else on the team averaged more than 1.8 points per game.

Lang said the team’s experience is a bonus, especially during the summer.

“It definitely gives us more of an advantage against other teams,” Lang said. “We’ve played together for more than a season and some other teams are rebuilding now.”

In addition to Amptmann and Calendo providing more scoring, Wickness said he’s expecting leaps out of both Lang and Carrier.

For Lang, that means using her ball-handling skills and athleticism to make her even more unguardable in press situations.

“If she has the ball in space she’s going to make a lot of people have nightmares and question their abilities on the defensive end,” Wickness said. “She’s that good. She’s taken a big step forward for us. Her shot is more consistent, she looks more confident and she’s starting to hunt physicality.”

Wickness said he hopes to see Carrier create more opportunities for both herself and her teammates.

“That’s something that she and I talked about and I think she’s on par with it,” Wickness said. “She’s a great passer, she has great court vision, and when we’re running in transition that’s when we can be our best.”

Carrier said a big focus of the summer has been working on the confidence of the younger players.

Wickness said all the pieces are in place for a much-improved 2025-26 campaign. But the confidence Carrier talked about will be pivotal as well.

“I told the girls our goal is to learn how to win games,” Wickness said. “Last year we didn’t win as many games as we did in the past. We didn’t have a ton of seniors, so we were young and inexperienced. That can’t be an excuse this year because we got a whole season of it last year.”