One of the best all-around games from the 2018 Iowa Girls State Basketball tournament was the Class 2A State Quarterfinal between the second-seeded Panorama Panthers and the seventh-seeded North Union Warriors. Trailing by one with less than six seconds remaining, Panorama senior Bailey Beckman stole the ensuing inbound pass and fired a long straightaway three-point shot at the buzzer. Beckman’s game-winner missed short off the rim, and North Union pulled off a 47-46 upset win.

The Raccoon Valley Radio Network had Panorama girls basketball coach Dan Druivenga as a guest on Monday’s Wahl McAtee Tire and Service Center Guthrie County PM Sports Page. He said the state tournament loss didn’t give his team extra motivation to work hard this summer. “I know it was probably a great disappointment that we lost (to North Union) but I still think that it would’ve been the same work ethic no matter if we would’ve won that game or not,” Druivenga said, “I know some people use (the loss) as motivation, I just think we have a group of girls that work extremely hard.”

Preparation for the upcoming season began shortly after the end of the fall sports season at Panorama Community Schools. Druivenga shared a volunteer parent opened the gym up all last week for returning varsity players to start working on conditioning drills ahead of this week’s start of preseason practice. The Panorama girls basketball team’s first preseason event takes place next Thursday, November 15 participating in a jamboree at Audubon High School. The regular season opener is set for Tuesday, November 20, traveling to Gilbert for a nonconference contest against the Tigers.