The girls basketball team aims to secure a fourth-consecutive Intercity title when they tip off their season against the Normal West Wildcats on Nov. 23 at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center.

This year’s Intercity tournament debuts in a centralized format at Shirk, with State Farm stepping in as the title sponsor. The venue change marks a departure from last season’s short-lived rotating schedule, which had each high school host a night of the competition.

Despite the Iron’s four-year undefeated streak against Bloomington-Normal opponents and their status as reigning champions, head coach Mr. Dave Feeney said the team’s tournament-run and season still contains many “unknowns.”

With the graduation of last year’s generationally-talented senior class, the team will be led by a new group of upperclassmen with 10 juniors making their varsity debut.

For a program that posted back-to-back 31-4 seasons with the consistency of experienced three-year varsity players, this transition presents a unique challenge.

“This year there are unknown factors,” Feeney said. “They have to prove it.”

To guide the team through these uncertainties, Feeney introduced a new program motto: “Fear is a Liar.”

In a season defined by the “loss” of senior leadership and depth, Feeney emphasized that pressure from external expectations is “kind of a lie.”

“I don’t want us to be afraid of anything,” Feeney said, particularly the shadow of last year’s success. “I don’t care about last year’s team. We’re our own journey.”

That journey begins at Intercity, which Feeney described as a crucial “test” to see “who [the team] can be” as the season unfolds. With the season in what the coach called its “infancy” stage, his focus is on establishing a foundation of “doing things the right way.”

Things, he said, like how the team “respond[s] to adversity, our body language, our team chemistry, playing ridiculously unselfish, playing like Ironman basketball, our fundamentals on defense.”

Defense will be a key strength for the Iron, led by returning standouts like Rayna Powers, who averaged 2.6 steals per game last season, and Marco Reynolds, the team’s blocks leader.

Guard A’Meah Lester also made her mark defensively, recording a team-high four steals in one contest during last year’s Intercity tournament, a team-high.

“I’m hoping that we’re going to be a good defensive team,” Feeney said.

The Iron will need that defensive prowess to offset the absence of 6-foot-1 Sydney Janssen, who opted not to suit up for her senior season while rehabbing an injury.

While last year, Community’s roster featured five players standing 5-foot-11 and above, this year the Iron only feature one player listed above 5-foot-10 on the roster.

6-foot-1 Marco Reynolds will anchor the paint as the team will adopt an inside-out approach on offense.

Despite a lack of physical height, Feeney said, the group has an assortment of players that “play big,” like seniors Powers and Armoni Conner.

And it features players with big voices that will help lead the team this season, like Reynolds, who Feeney described as a “fiery” leader, holding players accountable and hyping them up.

“The team is following her,” he said.

Another key leader is senior Camry Fisher who, Feeney said, is a “lead-by-example” presence on the team.

Fisher’s a player who doesn’t “say a lot,” but when she talks, Feeney said, “people want to hear it.”

That leadership will be essential when the Iron face Intercity opponents that Feeney said have all improved from last season.

While last year, the Iron defeated their Twin City foes by an average margin of 32 points in the tournament, this year, the coach said, “the gap is definitely narrowed.”

Everybody, Feeney said, “is going to be better. I think they’re all excited, they think that we have taken a step back.”

That isn’t a sentiment the Iron’s head coach agrees with.

“We’re hoping to prove that hasn’t happened,” Feeney said. The 2024 Iron, the coach said, have taken just a step sideways,” “a different style,” and hopefully, the “same result.”