A season to remember for the Cincinnati Christian girls basketball team was sparked by an effort to forget.

Facing Reading in the Blue Devils’ holiday tournament over Christmas break, the Cougars disappointed coach Paul Owens with a lethargic performance in a 47-41 loss.

And he reminded them of it for the next several days.

“We had an exceedingly tough week of practice after that,” Owens said. “During any successful season there has to be a wake-up call at some point. I’ve seen a big change in the way the seniors have gone about their business since that game.”

CCS responded with 10 wins in a row, punctuated by a 43-36 victory at No. 1 tournament seed Summit Country Day on Feb. 2. That gave the Cougars a school-record 17^th win and put the finishing touches on a second consecutive Miami Valley Conference Grey Division championship.

“That Reading game was an awakening,” said senior Kirsten Paul, the team’s leading scorer at 13.6 points per game. “I was like, ‘You know what, it’s time to step it up and act like actual seniors.’”

“I think the realization hit all of us that, hey, this is our last year,” added senior Anna Wolford, who averages 9.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. “We wanted to leave a legacy of playing every game like it was our last.”

Sitting 17-3 with two regular season games remaining, the No. 2-seeded Cougars are ready to embark on what they hope will be a long run through the Division III tournament after being knocked out in the first round last year.

“We talked about that a lot,” said Owens, who in his second season with the team. “Last year was a little different. Last year was more of a step in the process. We knew we would be better this year, and we have goals of getting further in the tournament.”

CCS lost only one player off last year’s squad that finished 14-7.

Junior Abby Wolford leads the team in assists (2.9 per game) this season and is second in scoring (11.5), while junior Kirsten Cameron is the top rebounder (6.8).

Seniors Katie Bandenburg and Sarah Rainous, junior Bre Lyon and sophomore Hannah Edwards also have played key roles while logging a lot of playing time.

Owens has beefed up the non-league schedule with a pair of Division I foes in Oak Hills and Hamilton, which account for the Cougars’ other two losses, in addition to D2 schools McNicholas and Wyoming.

But more telling than the new teams on the schedule are some of the old ones.

“We’re 5-0 against teams that beat us last year,” Owens said. “We made a list of goals prior to the season, and that was one of them, to get those games.”

After wrapping the regular season at home Saturday against McNicholas, CCS will open tournament play Feb. 20 at Edgewood against No. 4 seed Preble Shawnee.

“We’ve done so many positive things this year that I have a really good feeling about the tournament,” Paul said.