There isn’t a better time of the season for the Van-Far girls to be playing their best. 

The Lady Indians extended a season-high four-game winning streak on Feb. 12 with a 30-17 victory over Christian Fellowship (9-11) at home. One game after setting a season-low for points allowed, Van-Far’s defense came one point shy of doing it again.

Van-Far (11-12) secured its 11th victory for the first time since 2022 and put itself in position for a 12th win, which would be the first for the program since 2012. Head coach Heather Minter said, since the Bowling Green Tournament, the Lady Indians have tried making goals toward the end of the season.

Van-Far vs Christian Fellowship Photo Gallery

“We feel like we let a couple go early in the season — at least three, for sure,” Minter said. “We’re trying to find some positives and to look forward to next year.”

Two days prior, Van-Far shut down Eastern Missouri Conference foe Wellsville-Middletown with a 46-16 victory on the road. The Lady Indians only had two points in the second quarter but had the stingy defense that allowed their offense to catch up in the third quarter.

Minter said Van-Far tried to contain Ariya Barton because she was the best ball handler for Christian Fellowship, in Van-Far’s estimation. She said that was the focus that kept the opposing offense manageable.

“We’re going to have nights where we struggle to score,” Minter said. “As long as we’re not letting other teams score, we just got to balance that out.”

Elliott Utterback led with 12 points, Kenya Jones followed with eight points, including the first five points of the game, and Chloe Zumwalt had seven points and six rebounds.

Utterback knocked down a 3-pointer in the third quarter prior to Mylee Keller hitting another from deep in transition. Van-Far started clicking on offense as it closed the third quarter on a 10-1 run for a 27-17 lead going into the fourth quarter.

“It felt nice,” Utterback said with some relief when asked about when the shots started falling. “It felt like we were getting into the flow of things and that we were figuring things out.”

Utterback said Van-Far felt fine even after a quiet offensive quarter and was ready to break through soon.

“We all talked through it and said, ‘We’ve got to come together and we got to find things to help us score.’ We knew we weren’t getting outside so we knew we needed to drive in and get it inside.”

Minter said her team seemed to click when shots started falling. She said it was “an ugly win,” but the win part is the most important because each victory is significant toward the end of the season. 

The Lady Indians were confident after shots went down on Thursday, but Utterback said the team was confident after beating conference rival Mark Twain. That victory started the winning streak.

“After that, it boosted us,” Utterback said. “We have been playing really well.”

Minter said Van-Far is putting itself in better positions to win than a season ago. Because of that, double-digit victories were achievable this season.

“You look from where we were from last year, we felt like we could’ve have won at three or four more games that we’ve let go,” Minter said. “If you look at our scores from last year to this year, we have improved big time. It’s trying to make kids understand where we’re at and where we could be.”

It was announced Van-Far will be the No. 6 seed in the Class 2 District 5 tournament it will host.