Growing up in Ryley, Alta., a town with a population slightly above 500 people, Kiera Lyons spent her youth playing basketball.

“The high school had less than 100 kids and almost 50 per cent of the girls played basketball,” Lyons said. “It’s a small town, but basketball is big.”

These days Lyons leads the Huskies women’s basketball team at the University of Saskatchewan, which has a population of roughly 20,000 students. She attributes her current success on the university sport stage to the competitive atmosphere of her small-town high school.

“I credit a lot of where I am today to the program and coaching staff there,” Lyons said.

The 5-10 point guard is one of only two fourth-year players on the Huskies women’s team — a squad without a single fifth-year veteran in the lineup. Lyons sits second on the team in scoring with 80 points in six games this season.

“Having the experience of playing four years, I definitely feel like a leader on the team.”

Lyons has been with the Huskies for the past two years but started her collegiate career with the Augustana Vikings at Augustana College, a satellite campus of the University of Alberta in Camrose, Alta. She was the Augustana’s MVP in 2010-11, then transferred to the U of S.

Lyons says her humble beginnings help her appreciate what basketball has done for her, which is part of the reason she is studying to become a high school teacher.

“I definitely want to coach high school basketball,” Lyons said. “I feel like I have to coach. If you play basketball you have to give back.”

Lyons’ upbringing allowed her to forge close connections with her family, whom she says are her biggest fans.

“They drive six and a half hours to make sure they don’t miss any home games,” Lyons said.

With an athletic older brother, Lyons admits she looked up to her brother when she was growing up.

“He’s definitely been a huge influence… kicking my butt on the court every day and making me better and tougher.

“I had lots of cousins around my age too, so we would always beat up on each other. It definitely made me better,” she said.

When it comes to her pre-game preparation, Lyons enforces many odd habits upon herself.

“Wearing my hair in a bun works until I have a bad game, then I wear my hair in a ponytail, which I do until I play badly again,” admitted Lyons.

She also has a regimen of switching warm-up shirts during the course of a game.

“I have a special rotation of my shooting shirts, which we wear when the team goes onto the court from the dressing room,” she said.

“I have a long white shirt I wear out when we first go to warm up for the game. Then we have black cut-off shirts which I wear after 20 minutes. And then I put the white one back on when we come back out after halftime.

“I never really thought I had so many superstitions,” laughed Lyons after explaining her routine.

[box type=”info”]The next time you can see Kiera play at home is Friday, Nov. 23 when the Dogs compete against the visiting UBC Thunderbirds at the PAC. Tipoff is at 6:15 p.m.[/box]

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Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf