The Norwalk girls basketball team enters the 2024-2025 season with lofty expectations. And who can blame them?
The Warriors return nearly their entire roster from last year’s 18-win regional finalist, led by the state’s leading scorer in Bailey Birmingham. The 5-foot-9 senior guard averaged 27.4 points per game last season, helping Norwalk triple their win total from the year before, finish 18-5 overall and place second in the Little Hawkeye Conference.
This season, there will be two Birminghams on the floor. Five-foot-10 freshman Braylyn Birmingham, who has already received an NCAA Division I scholarship offer from the University of South Dakota, joins her older sister in the Warriors’ starting five. Also back is junior forward Ava Carlson, who contributed a solid 8.3 points and 7.9 rebounds per game in the post. Junior guard Hannah Overholser, a newcomer who moved to Norwalk from Texas, will start on the wing. The fifth starter will either be junior Pearl Brown or senior Grace Linder, another newcomer to the team.
Overall, the Warriors are taller, deeper and more experienced than the team that lost to Lewis Central by four points in last year’s regional finals. Second-year head coach Joe Sigrist is seeing great leadership from the team’s six seniors and is excited to watch his squad improve day-by-day throughout the season. Sigrist tells KNIA Sports that the long-term goals include a conference title, hosting a regional final, making the 4A state tournament and winning it all.
“I dream about that regional final here where all the stands are filled and we have a home Norwalk crowd that is completely behind us to push us on to the state tournament,” he said. “We have really big goals. We have goals to not only go to the state tournament, but to win it. I think we have the group that if they come in with a mindset to be better each and every day, we’ll have a great chance.”
The Norwalk girls open the season on Friday night, hosting Urbandale at 7:00 p.m. Additional returning players for the Warriors include seniors Ellie Dueland and Avery Thomas and sophomore Payton Travis. Another senior, Braelyn Clark – last year’s third-leading scorer – will not play while recovering from offseason surgery.