SBLive Oklahoma All-State Girls Basketball 2022-23: Edmond North senior Laci Steele selected Most Outstanding Player

By Mike Moguin | Photo by Michael Kinney 

Long hours of hard work, dedication, sweat and tears paid off for the Edmond North Lady Huskies the past two years with back-to-back Class 6A state championships.

Among the key players has been Laci Steele, the SBLive Oklahoma All-State Most Outstanding Player of the Year for the 2022-23 basketball season.

The North Carolina State signee accomplished some milestones during her senior campaign, such as reaching the 2,000-point club in early March.

“It’s a great privilege. I couldn’t do anything without my teammates,” Steele said. “We worked hard all year. These last two years, we’ve been (a combined 54-1). It is just a crazy accomplishment; I work hard all season long to do that for my team.

"I’m proud of everything we did for both this season and last season, as well. It is just great to be able to have a team that lets me do what I need to do to make sure we win.”

Steele, a 5-foot-10 guard/forward, played alongside fellow senior Elle Papahronis, daughter of head coach Pete Papahronis and a University of San Francisco signee, and junior Allison Heathcock. They were often among the high scorers during Edmond North's unscathed 29-0 campaign.

They are also among the teammates Steele credits.

“I’ll remember the 5 a.m. workouts we had that nobody wanted to do, but we still did it,” she adds. “I remember the hotel trips we had as a team and going to eat together after games, and I definitely remember, and I think everyone else will, winning two state championships while being a Husky.”

Basketball, Steele-made 

When Steele was at a younger age, her parents told her to try all the sports to see which one she liked the most. She played softball and soccer before deciding that “basketball definitely stuck,” she said after elementary school.

“What drives me most about basketball is the hard work that you put in, you’ll see results and I love the aspect of it,” Steele said. “I just have a fun time playing with my team and it's a lot to be able to get on the court with them, and I enjoy it. I love the game of basketball.”

Finishing unbeaten

When the time for the 6A state tourney in Norman came, the Lady Huskies had to step up as they endured a tough challenge.

“It was a great feeling to not lose any games,” Steele said. “Heading into the tournament, we definitely did not want to take an 'L' as our last game, especially having the great season we were having. So it was just great to be able to play as a team and get all those wins together for sure.

“Our closest game all year was against (Putnam City) West in the semifinals,” Steele added. “We only won by three points (45-42), so that was definitely one of our hardest games.

"I think things weren’t going in as they normally do for us, so we had to claw and fight our way through that game, but it ended up being a good game and it definitely got us prepared for the final.”

Steele scored 29 points in the Lady Huskies’ 70-58 win against Bixby in the quarterfinals, 16 against PC West and 19 in a 65-58 win against Norman in the final, all finishing with an average of 21.7 per game.

Her attention is now on training for the next chapter, college basketball at N.C. State.

Steele remarked she is working with her trainer three to four times a week and has received a lifting workout from the trainer at N.C. State, playing pickup basketball and running sprints at Edmond North, to get ready for playing at the next level.

SBLive Oklahoma Girls Basketball Coach of the Year: Eric Sailer, Bethany

An interesting story is rooted in the coaching journey of Eric Sailer.

A 1988 graduate of Oklahoma City John Marshall, Sailer played football and baseball, and was involved in wrestling, but never played the game of basketball in high school. Yet, here he is in 2023, having coached the Bethany Lady Bronchos to a Class 4A state championship.

This makes Sailer the 2022-23 SBLive Oklahoma All-State Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.

It was Shane Coffey, currently the head coach at Broken Arrow, who got Sailer into coaching on the hardwood when both worked together as co-teachers at Central Middle School in 1998.

“(Coffey) got the head girls job and he asked me to come over and be his assistant,” Sailer said. “Because I respected Shane so much, I wanted to give it a shot.”

Sailer would be an assistant to Coffey at Edmond Memorial for 10 years and later was the head coach at Class 6A Yukon from 2013-16 before arriving at Bethany in 2017.

It took four seasons for the Lady Bronchos to excel under Sailer’s coaching, where they had a 19-6 record in 2021-22. This past year, they went all the way to the 4A tourney after finishing No. 3 in the final OSSAA poll, knocking off No. 4 Kingfisher, No. 3 Tuttle and No. 1 Lincoln Christian in the final for the gold ball.

“As the final seconds started ticking off the clock, I was able to just look up at the stands, look at the girls on the floor, and all of the hard work they put in, and all the support that we got from our community, it just finally hit what we had done,” Sailer said.

“I was so ecstatic. I was so happy for the girls. I was so happy for the coaching staff, and so excited for our community when that happened."

Bethany finished 29-1 on the year.

SBLive Oklahoma Girls Basketball Newcomer of the Year: Maddi Stewart, Lincoln Christian 

With a supporting cast of experience, having a parent as the coach, and a performance average of 13 points per game, Lincoln Christian freshman Maddi Stewart is the SBLive Oklahoma All-State Girls Basketball Newcomer of the Year.

“I’ve been around basketball since I was young. I really enjoy the competitiveness of it,” Stewart said. “It is a competitive sport and you have to have the drive to play this game.

"I feel like it’s really fun whenever you have that, and if you have teammates around you, that makes it even more fun to play.”

Stewart’s mother is Melody Stewart, the head coach of the Lady Eagles. The younger Stewart has definitely inherited the game from her mom.

“It is definitely fun to have her as my coach. It makes it part of the chemistry,” Maddi Stewart said.

When this year came around the corner, everything clicked as she and teammates like senior Ellie Brueggemann, fellow freshman Kaylie Atkinson and sophomore Audrey Hopkins were often sharing the scoring, finishing in double figures in points in each game.

“They’ve all been nothing but welcoming to me as an underclassman coming up as a freshman, and it has made it easier for me to play free and with confidence,” Stewart said.

Highlighted by winning the Tournament of Champions title in December, Lincoln Christian had been No. 1 in Class 4A all season until the state championship final against Bethany, where the Lady Bulldogs lost and had to settle for a silver ball as runner-up and a 27-2 finish.

“It was completely surreal and honestly, I couldn’t have jumped up to a better year, better season," Stewart said. "Getting to play with the teammates I had, even our coaching staff is so amazing, so I couldn’t have asked for a better freshman season, even though it didn’t end up exactly how we wanted it to.

"I’m still very proud of what we did this season and I think it was really a good one to start with.”