It’s probably fair to say that the Selma Saints basketball team will go as far as senior Jacquetta Dailey takes it this year.

Selma isn’t lacking for experience with fellow seniors Jamya Smith and Areyana Williams also returning, but Dailey is the engine that makes the team go.

“I try to put a lot on my shoulders, so they can follow me,” Dailey said. “They look up to me. If I’m down, then they’re down. If I’m up, than they are up, so I try my best to be the leader they want me to be so we can win the game.”

Dailey, the team’s point guard, was second on the team last year with 11.6 points per game. This summer she worked on her jump shot, but she’s known for her ability to drive to the basket, which makes the Selma offense hard to stop with Williams inside and Smith, a high percentage 3-point shooter, on the outside.

“If she makes at least two in a row, or three, it’s over with,” Dailey said of Smith. “She’s going to make them every time.”

Dailey’s senior season is also about redemption. Last year, Dailey, Smith and Williams missed the Saints’ playoff game in Montgomery due to a violation of team rules. After all the work the team had put in to get to the Central Regional — just four wins from a state championship — Selma had to play John Carroll without its three leading scorers.

“We had some kids that thought about themselves,” said Selma coach Anthony Harris following that game. “They didn’t put team first and that’s what happened. Bad choices, bad decisions.”

The Saints who played put up a fight, but ended up losing the game. Dailey had to hear about it all from afar because she wasn’t in Montgomery for the game.

“No words can explain it. It was heartbreaking knowing I couldn’t play,” she said.

She said that experience served as motivation during the summer. She’s worked hard, “paid her dues” as Harris puts it, and is ready to lead the Saints again.

“We could’ve went all the way last year and having that happen and looking back on it, your like, I messed up, I hurt my coaches, I hurt my team, I hurt the school,” she said. “Now, we are coming back stronger, trying to make it to the state.”

Off the court, Dailey is a devoted student. She has a 3.9 GPA and enjoys social studies and English. One day she hopes to one day become a computer technician.

“I take my grades very seriously because education is the main focus,” Dailey said. “If you don’t get grades in the classroom, you won’t be able to play a sport. I love basketball so in the classroom, I have to get my grades and in order to go to college you’ve got to make good grades … so that’s one of the main focuses for me.”

Dailey hopes to be playing college basketball next year at this time, but this year her focus is on winning a state championship. She said it would mean a lot to win one for Harris, her coach since the eighth grade.

“If we win, it would be amazing because that’s my first state championship and I just came back to redeem myself,” she said. “My coach, he’s an awesome coach, he pushed me hard and pushed everybody hard. I think it would be a great experience for him as well.”

The Saints open their season Friday night in Orrville.