Handed a fist full of lemons Alex Beveridge and her team are in the process of making lemonade.
Just a week ago Alex’s Gothenburg girls basketball team was cruising along, astounding many in the process, winning their first 11 games of the season without loss. Then came the Broken Bow game. The Swedes dropped a four-point decision - it had to be Broken Bow, ugh - and Alex and her crew went back to the blackboard to work things out.
“Losing like that is hard but that game showed what we needed to work on and put it into practice, and to keep growing as a team,” says Alex, who is a 5-foot-6 senior shooting guard for the Swedes. “We surprised a lot of people after losing all those seniors from last year’s team, and they were are leaders. But I also think losing brought us together and helped us focus in.”
Sure looks like it. Gothenburg bounced back the following night after the Bow loss, beating a very good Sidney team, a 2024 C-1 state finalist, 68-60. Then came Tuesday’s 72-15 win over Valentine in the opening round of the Southwest Conference tournament, boosting the 13-1 Swedes into Friday’s semifinals where they will face McCook (12-5). Tipoff at Kearney High is set for 8 p.m.
“Last year’s seniors for so good but we worked hard all offseason, and I knew I’d need to step up and be willing to lead our team,” says Alex. “It was a little easier to help take charge because I have been playing varsity since I was a freshman, and all that experience helped with my confidence in a role like that.”
Beyond the leadership, and you watch the kid play you see the confidence in her every move, Alex is also a talented scorer and all-around player. Credit the kid with being resilient, too, since this is just her second year at GHS, having attended Hershey High as a freshman and sophomore.
“Changing schools was kind of hard, I left a lot of good friends in Hershey,” explains Alex, and if you’ve ever been in those shoes you know exactly what she means. “The girls on the team were great and after a while I found my place. Things are a lot better this year, I have a great circle of friends.”
Alex - named for her great-grandfather - comes from an athletic family, her father being that Tom Beveridge, the former Sutherland superstar and Huskers football player. He is also the inspiration behind Alex’s athletic endeavors, with her mom Kelly also in the mix.
“When I was little Dad always shot baskets with me and (little sister) Zoe before school. He and my mom got us into sports and I really liked them,” says Alex. “The best part about basketball is you get out of it what you put into it. If you work harder than them, you are going to be better than them.”
Given all her achievements in the game of basketball, the kid musta worked pretty hard.
Born in Omaha, at the time Alex and her family lived in Weeping Water before moving to Sutherland, where she attended school through seventh grade, and then to Hershey, through her sophomore year in high school. Alex is also the oldest of five Beveridge girls, her sister Zoe a sophomore on the Gothenburg girls basketball team, plus three younger ones. “It can get pretty interesting at your house,” says Alex, “especially with all us girls getting ready for school in the morning.” You can draw your own picture from that description, right?
An avid reader, with fiction her go-to, Alex also enjoys shopping, going for long walks with friends, and her time at nearby Lake Maloney (think south of North Platte) where her grandmother lives. Her favorite food is pizza and she likes to keep it simple, “hamburger, maybe pepperoni once in a while,” and she’s also a fan of the rising country music group Treaty Oak Revival. She also finds Youtube entertaining, and will watch the occasional show on Netflix.
An outstanding classroom student with a 3.7 GPA and membership in the National Honor Society, Alex especially enjoys history and social studies classes, and she is active in the school’s Interact Club, which commits to a community service project each month, the pep club and art club. Turns out she’s a painter, too. “I do mostly acrylic, though I don’t have any particular pieces I have finished.”
Here’s a little something, she’s also a member of the Gothenburg High tennis team, qualifying for state each of the past two seasons. “I’d never played before my freshman year but my dad bought me a racket and I immediately liked playing,” Alex recalls. She wears No. 20 in basketball because it was her dad’s number.
As for college Alex plans to attend cosmetology school in Omaha after her high school graduation with the dream being the chance to own her own shop.
For a girl who’s seen her share of moves to different schools, she is glad GHS is her final stop.
“I feel at home here,” she mentions. “These last three weeks of basketball season I want to keep growing with my team and make it to state, and also to just enjoy being a senior for these final months.”
