‘Not just individually, but as a team’, Lincoln girls’ basketball team aims for 10,000 shots in 12-hour marathon

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The girls basketball team at Lincoln Southeast High School has decided to collectively run a marathon for 12 hours.

But this isn’t your traditional marathon. Instead, the idea is to make 3-point basket shots continuously from 9am to 9pm.

The ‘Three-Point Marathon’ took place at the school’s John Prasch Activities Center on Wednesday.

Each player who showed up committed to a 30- to 60- minute interval, making shots from one of two baskets on the court.

“Today we’re just challenging our girls from a different perspective,” said head coach Isaiah Dell.

“Sometimes, July can be the dogs days, so how can we energize the program a little bit and keep them challenging themselves, setting goals.”

Despite this being the first year the marathon launched, assistant coach Paul Bade says they’ve been committed to readying the girls in all capacities.

An intention that seems to be working out.

“Two years ago, when we kind of started focusing on shooting,  no girls shot above 20% of the year,” said Bade.

“Last year we had seven girls shoot above 30% and one girl even shot 42% of the year.”

The girls say they’re thankful for their coaches’ leadership and are equally committed.

Leslie Garcia, a senior on the team, described how their mentality improved thanks to the coaches guidance.

“I was suppose to be here for an hour, and I’ve been here over two hours,” she said.

“I was happy because I knew we were gonna get a lot of shots in, and it would improve our team a lot. Not just individually, but as a team. With all of us here and working together, it should be easy for us.”

Garcia’s teammate, Marika Kalnins is a high school junior at Lincoln Southeast.

When she first learnt of the challenge, she said she knew it would take some effort to complete, but says, “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

“It’s really just a mindset. You really have to lock-in, forget what’s around you,” said Kalnins.

The marathon’s first goal was to make five thousand shots, but later changed to a goal of 10,000.

For the last hour of the challenge, the players’ parents were invited to help them reach that total.

Garcia told Channel 8 that she hopes that through this marathon, she hopes that the community realizes how hard they work.

“No matter how many hours you spend in the gym, or in weights, we still do it.  We just rock through it I guess,” said Garcia.

After eight hours of shooting hoops, the girls had reached 6,151 shots.

This is a developing story, and once the final count is reached we will update this article.