The Warrenton girls basketball team repeated as Class 4, District 8 champs this season despite losing two seniors off last year’s team and starting three sophomores most of the year.

On paper, they were the team to beat all season.

But in the locker room, they looked at themselves not as a team defending a district championship, but as a young group looking to grow into a winner.

They were just fortunate enough to grow while also having more talent than most teams they played.

Senior forward Amanda Lafaver, who averaged 3.1 points this season, will graduate.

But the rest of the offense — 94 percent of the scoring, to be exact — is expected to return, led by junior forward Jenny Jansen.

Jansen averaged 17.1 points this season and is expected to earn first-team All-GAC North honors.

“Losing Hannah (Sutton) and Kylie (Toebben) was tough, but this year we built relationships and we’re really close,” Jansen said. “Having another year as a group will really help us in the long run.”

The sophomore trio of Kayla Nelson, Rylie Cox and Ashtyn Dixon nearly tripled their scoring this season, from a combined 7.1 points per game to 19.6.

Junior guard Kaylee Anderson bumped her scoring from 4.8 points to nine, and she saw her 3-point percentage balloon from 26 percent to 40 percent.

“Last year, we had two seniors that played a lot, and these kids had a smaller role,” Head Coach Greg Williams said. “But now it’s on them. This was many of the girls’ first experience being starters and having big roles.”

While Lafaver missed most of the second half of the season while recovering from a torn ligament in her elbow, Nelson filled her spot in the starting lineup and Warrenton fans likely saw next year’s starting five.

“We’re so young, and people don’t realize that we’re the up-and-comers,” Williams said. “So we’ve got to go through these things.”

Williams said his team panicked early in the district championship game against Fulton, and was overmatched Tuesday against the likes of St. Charles’ Gabby Walker and Tanisha Wilson.

“They have the length, quickness and strength that we just didn’t have,” he said.

But with another year of postseason experience and, perhaps just as importantly, another offseason in the weight room, Williams believes next year’s team could get over the hump in sectionals.

Nelson agreed.

“All the best players from these schools will be gone next year, but we’re young,” she said. “We’ll have this experience and these teams won’t. Nothing we see next year will faze us.”

Williams called the team hungry, and said their weren’t happy with another one-and-done affair in sectionals.

“We’re going to come back next year and get this right,” he said. “These teams are older than us, but they’re losing a lot of good players. We’re getting a lot of experience and we’re going to get better.”