The Columbus Wildcats made significant progress in girls’ basketball last year, with six of their seven wins coming in conference play, and head coach Kasey Keltner believes returning most of the young talent that made that possible means Columbus is only going to keep climbing this season.

Among the Wildcats’ returners is junior guard Ariana Vergara, who led the team in scoring in last year while averaging over eight points, four rebounds and two steals per game. Junior Lily Coil also returns off averaging over seven points, six rebounds and three steals per contest.

Juniors Frannie Sosa and Aracely Garza are back and will be featured players for the team after combining to average nearly eight points, nine rebounds, two-and-a-half assists and four steals a game. Keltner tells KCII Sports that his team has a proclivity for forcing turnovers.

“We’ve got some good speed [and] we’ve got some good quickness,” Keltner says, “so I think we have to use that for us to be able to do things in games and be competitive. Having those kids now playing for the third year in a row, they’re going to be able to anticipate [and] have some good basketball IQ to get them in positions to cause even more havoc on the defensive end.”

Columbus will open the new girls’ basketball season this coming Tuesday when they travel to face Hillcrest Academy.