Lakeville North girls ready to lace up some basketball wins

It's just a shoelace — one simple, red shoelace. But it's one of the most important symbols of the Lakeville North girls' basketball program.

The idea is simple: Each week the team has an open meeting. The players sit in a circle and "air everything out," coach Shelly Clemons said, whether it's issues off the court, on the court or at home.

"They talk about it all, and at the end, they vote on the person who's most deserving to wear the red shoelace that week," Clemons said. "It forces them to hold themselves and each other accountable. They evaluate themselves, and they're honest, and it really creates this strong bond for the team."

There has been a lot of soul searching at the Panthers' weekly shoelace meetings early this season.

Lakeville North is off to an uncharacteristic 3-5 start after losing to four teams ranked in the top 10 in Class 4A and another (Orono) ranked atop Class 3A. That was before the Panthers defeated Class 4A, No. 6 White Bear Lake 63-50 on Tuesday.

Such an unrelenting schedule isn't unusual for the Panthers, perennially one of the state's top teams. Such uneven results are a rarity, though.

"We just keep telling each other that we're better than our record," senior guard Polly Sjoberg said. "Nobody's happy about it, but we know we'll be OK."

She's a big part of the Panther tradition, having played on championship teams at Lakeville under former coach Andy Berkvam before eventually becoming a part of his coaching staff.

In Clemons' first season as head coach, Lakeville North rebounded from a slow start to reach the Class 4A state tournament semifinals.

Heading into this year, the Panthers lost just three players to graduation and returned seniors Sjoberg and MacKenzie Dank. Their point guard, sophomore Temi Carda, is an experienced veteran who played extensively as an eighth-grader and freshman.

Yet, it's been a struggle to close out games thus far.

"It's just about finding roles," Clemons said. "We have players with experience, but they haven't had to be that player at the end of the game before, the player we're expecting to close out the game for us."

Still, the Panthers need to find ways to make those plays. That starts with holding themselves accountable, the coach said. It starts with the shoelace.

"It's just little things," Carda said. "We're just barely missing things, and when you're not getting those little things, it's hard for the games to go our way.

"We're not worried about it. We understand it, we talk about it, and we're just working hard and focusing on those things and waiting for it to click. We know it'll click."