Vale junior Kesley Stepleton is averaging team highs of 12.7 points and 8.5 rebounds this season. (Photo by Kat Seals)

For Vale's girls basketball team, the sting of a one-point semifinal loss to eventual 3A champion Corbett last year lingers.

“I still lose sleep over it,” coach Randy Seals said. “It's a big motivator.”

The silver lining from that loss, according to Seals, is that the Vikings learned that they are a legitimate championship threat. And even after graduating three starters from a 25-3 team – including two first-team all-league players in Hailey Cleaver and Halle Peterson – they have carried that belief into this season.

Vale has won 10 in a row and stands 14-1 overall, 3-0 in the Eastern Oregon League. The Vikings are No. 2 in the OSAAtoday 3A coaches poll, behind unbeaten Amity (16-0).

“I'm not surprised,” Seals said. “The junior group has been playing basketball for a long time. They push each other and they're always improving. It's just trying to find our identity, which we're starting to kind of find it.”

Junior forward Kesley Stepleton, first-team all-league last season, leads Vale in scoring (12.7) and rebounding (8.5). Stepleton and senior point guard Bella Johnson (2.7 assists) – returning starters – are joined in the starting lineup by junior forwards Elli Jacobs (9.1 points) and Izzy Maag (7.6 points, 3.9 rebounds) and junior guard Bailey Blake.

The Vikings also added a key transfer from league rival Nyssa in senior guard Brynlee Hartley, who is averaging 8.6 points as the first player off the bench.

Vale, which doesn't have a player taller than 5-foot-8, is winning with a balanced offense, gritty defense and deep rotation. The Vikings are holding teams to 31.0 points per game, third in 3A behind No. 4 Coquille (25.9) and Amity (30.0).

“If we can hold a team to 30 or 35 points, we can be in every game,” Seals said. “Early in the season, we were playing pretty well defensively but we weren't really clicking offensively. Defense was kind of keeping us in games.”

The offense began to break out when the Vikings won the Crusader Classic at Salem Academy from Jan. 2-4. Jacobs and Hartley have been connecting from deep, and Stepleton and Maag are producing inside.

“We have a good mixture of inside and outside shooters,” Seals said. “Early in the season, we weren't hitting a lot of shots. Now we're finally hitting them.

“I feel like we're well-rounded. We don't have the player that's going to score 25 a night, but we've got five or six players that could score 12. That's hard to guard against.”

Stepleton's athleticism and instincts make her a handful for opponents to guard. She is finding ways to score despite drawing more attention from defenses.

“Teams are kind of keying in on her, so the points are coming harder,” Seals said. “She's had to adjust to sometimes the other team's best defender guarding her.”

Vale avenged its only loss. The Vikings fell 40-28 at 4A No. 5 La Grande on Dec. 17, but posted a 48-34 home win over the Tigers on Jan. 11.

“The difference was we hit some shots at home,” Seals said. “When we lost to them, it was one of those nights that nothing would fall.”

The Vikings won both meetings against 4A No. 6 Baker, prevailing 54-48 on the road and 42-39 at home. They also have defeated 2A No. 3 Stanfield 54-38, 1A No. 1 Country Christian 51-31 and 2A No. 2 Salem Academy 63-34.

Seals, who was Vale's boys coach for three seasons (2011-14), is 66-29 in four seasons as the girls coach. Last season, the Vikings reached 20 wins for the first time since 2014-15, when they went 26-2 under coach Jason Johnson.

Johnson went 310-152 during an 18-year run (2002-20) that included state championships in 2011, 2012 and 2014. Johnson, the father of Bella Johnson, now assists Seals.

“It's nice to have that settling presence, because he's seen it all,” Seals said. “Just to bounce things off him, it's reassuring.”