By Rich Winter

605 Sports 

LA PLANT — On Tuesday, Feb. 4 the Tiospaye Topa High School girls basketball team delivered one more miracle in what has been an improbable season. 

Trailing host White River 71-66 with 51 seconds remaining, the Thunderhawks rallied for a 74-72 win while improving to 12-3 on the season. The Thunderhawks did it with just five players suited for the game.  

It also continued a banner season for the Class B school located on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and one that hasn’t experienced much success on the basketball court.  

“I’ve been the girls coach here for 11 years and there have been some years where we maybe won just one game,” Tiospaye Topa coach Clint LeCompte said. “We thought going into the season that we had some good players and an opportunity to be pretty good but yeah, this has been a fun year.”

The Thunderhawks won nine games last season, led by then-sophomore guard Pamela Meeter, who averaged around 18 points per game. Tiospaye Topa also returned starters Leilani Bowker, Cadence Bernie and Maddison Jeffries but the team needed one final ingredient and the experience of playing summer basketball together. 

LeCompte passed along some of the success of this year’s team to Wambli Meeter, Pamela’s father. Wambli Meeter loaded up the car as often as possible this summer exposing young ladies to the rigors of summer travel ball. 

Pam Meeter and Cadence Bernie celebrate a moment during the 2024 Lakota Nation Invitational - Rodney Haas / 605 Sports

“The biggest thing was the chemistry we developed this summer,” Pamela Meeter said. “I went from playing on a team with girls I hardly know to playing with these girls and we’re just having fun.” 

The missing ingredient turned out to Tyrianna Hawk Bear, a 5-feet-9 point forward nicknamed ‘Baby Shaq’. Hawk Bear played at Wakpala last season and raised some eyebrows when she decided to transfer from a winning team to a team that many thought was a serious downgrade. 

Hawk Bear knew who she had been playing with all summer and told those critics just how Tiospaye Topa’s season was going to go.

“I told people we were going to be Lakota Nation champions and we were,” Hawk Bear said. “I told them we were going to go far and we are.” 

While those predictions might have seemed outlandish in August, they have been backed up and then some so far this season. The Thunderhawks dropped a 78-46 game to Lakota Tech during the play-in game at the 2024 Lakota Nation Invitational. The Thunderhaws did win the Makosica bracket at Lakota Nation after beating Little Wound (60-50), Cheyenne-Eagle Butte (78-50) and Crow Creek (55-46). 

The championship trophy is something never before seen at Tiospaye Topa High School.

“To my knowledge we don’t have any girls basketball trophies in our school,” Lecompte said. “I’m not sure what to do with it, right now it’s just sitting on my desk.” 

Meeter leads the team in most statistical categories averaging 20.5 ppg, eight rebounds per game and nearly six assists and four steals per contest. Hawk Bear averages 17.7 ppg, while hauling in nine rebounds and pushing out 5.1 assists per game.
Bowker averages 16 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per contest while Bernie scores just over eight points per game. 

Meeter has all-state guard statistics but wasn’t ever sure she would play basketball until her dad convinced her during her fourth-grade year. 

“My dad made me go out in fourth grade,” Meeter laughed. “I’ve had a love/hate relationship with this game but it’s mostly love now, especially after the year we are having.” 

Pam Meeter and Leilani Bowker celebrated a moment of levity at the 2024 Lakota Nation Invitational - Rodney Haas / 605 Sports

Hawk Bear has a very cerebral game and the point-forward label is no exaggeration. She picked up a wide variety of skills while learning the game with her sister. 

“I started to play this way back at Wakpala High School,” she said. “It was always me and my sister that knew how to do everything and we worked with the little girls to help show them all areas of the game.” 

Entering Thursday’s home game against Bison, Tiospaye Topa’s only other losses were a 45-44 loss at Class A Pine Ridge on Jan. 16 and a 70-50 loss to Omaha Nation in the finals of the Dakota Oyate Challenge. 

For a team that wasn’t used to winning coming into the season the opportunity to host more hardware at the DOC in Mitchell was heartbreaking. 

“I just know my team had enough talent to win that tournament so it was a hard loss to take,” Meeter said. 

Entering Thursday’s game against Bison, Tiospaye Topa is sitting on top of the Region 6B standings, just ahead of Highmore-Harrold and Herreid/Selby Area. The Thunderhawks have a road game against Oelrichs and two very challenging home games against Harding County and McLaughlin.