In a season where everyone has faced adversity, the South Range girls’ basketball team has had everything the world could throw at it.

While not coming out unscathed, the team has battled through every trial thrown at them and are still standing, winning their second-straight district title and their third in four years.

Today, South Range looks to get back to where last year’s journey ended, the regional final, when they take on Warrensville Heights at 6:15 p.m. at Cuyahoga Heights High School in a Division III Regional semifinal.

Around the midway point of the season, the Raiders took a huge hit that very well could have been the end.

First, against Struthers, the team lost Gabby Lamparty and Bree Kohler to ACL and PCL tears, respectively. Then, a few days later, Izzy Lamparty suffered a concussion right at the beginning of the game in a scary incident against Poland, causing the game to get rescheduled.

“About the time halfway through the season, we felt like we were rolling pretty good, and we lost three starters in the matter of about a game and a half,” South Range coach Jeff Fishel said. “That really caused us to come together as a team really fast. I thought, at that point, we were pretty close, but it brought us closer.”

Losing three starters within the span of a week could be enough to sink a team’s season, but the Raiders persevered, winning all but one of their remaining 14 games to advance to the regional stage. South Range played five games without two of its starters, four of which were without three starters.

“We had three girls that had never started before, all of a sudden, have to start,” Fishel said. “So we had to find a way to make sure that we took care of business. … We knew we had to take care of business if we wanted to have any chance of winning the league title.

“In those games, we were able to go undefeated with a lot of players that got some great experience and really stepped up and played good basketball. More than anything, that’s what’s defined our season.”

After last season’s loss to Elyria Catholic in the regional final, there weren’t many tears shed on the Raider bench. When asked about the team’s core returning for another season, Izzy Lamparty said simply, “We’ll be back.”

She was right.

“Our whole team is so businesslike,” Fishel said. “I’ve really appreciated the last two years, how we take everything to heart and perform the way we’re supposed to perform. … Every night when we show up, and it’s nothing from a coaching perspective, it’s this group of girls, every night’s a business trip for us. That’s been kind of fun to watch because I know how much fun we have in practice, but when it comes to game time, we get down to business and get to work.”

The Raider seniors have seen this stage of the tournament three times now, but Fishel says that shouldn’t make it any less special.

“We’re just excited for the opportunity,” Fishel said. “Anytime you get to go play in a regional game it’s a blessing, There’s not a lot of teams left to get to do that. We’re going to make sure we take a minute to enjoy it, and hopefully we play well.”

The winner will go on to face the winner of Garfield and Apple Creek Waynedale.

On the other side of the bracket, the G-Men may have faced a less tumultuous road than South Range did, but Garfield has weathered its fair share of adversity on the way to the regionals.

“We got shut down for five weeks, then we had to come back,” G-Men coach Aaron Gilbert said. “We had two practices, lost a league game, then went rolling. Then right after the Champion game, we had a player that got shut down for contact tracing, so we were without a starter for two weeks.”

Similar to South Range having a standout in Izzy Lamparty, Garfield also has one of the top players in northeast Ohio in senior Grace Mills. According to Gilbert, Mills has registered over 1,600 points over her career and tallied 24 in Garfield’s district final win over Champion.

“Grace came in with the attitude at the beginning of the game, ‘I ain’t losing this game,’ ” Gilbert said. “She did everything in her power to make sure that didn’t happen, and she played as a player of the year should.”

There’s a level of familiarity with Waynedale that gives Gilbert confidence going into Wednesday’s matchup, but he acknowledges that at this stage of the game, anything could happen.

“I know a little bit about them because their coach is part of our AAU organization, so I kind of know some of the ideas,” Gilbert said. “We match up pretty well with them, but it’s a regional game and goofy things happen.”

Garfield (14-4) is set to play at 6:15. The winners advance to the regional final Saturday at 1:30 at Cuyahoga Heights.

Both the South Range and Garfield coaches share the same message for their kids: Just enjoy the ride.

“I’ve been coaching for 20-plus years, and you don’t get here very often, so you just want to enjoy it,” Gilbert said. “I want the kids to enjoy it because the junior class, they’ve been to a district final and now a regional, and that doesn’t happen all the time. You need to enjoy it, just soak it in.”