Coach of Year honors to Aleta Moss

Milestones arrive often these days for Wyoming Indian head girls basketball coach Aleta Moss.

She celebrated the 600th win of her illustrious career during the 2019-20 season and pushed the total to 603 last month in a late rally by her Lady Chiefs over a feisty Sundance Bulldog team. The rally earned Wyoming Indian its second consecutive Class 2-A championship in the process.

Moss is the Fremont County basketball coach of the year for the second consecutive season, as voted by the sports staff of The Ranger, Lander Journal and Wind River News.

Winning back-to-back titles is difficult in any sport, and doing it in the second-smallest division of Wyoming prep basketball is even more of a challenge.

Last spring Moss lost all-state players Siona Astorga and Alex Trosper to graduation after the 2019 championship. Both girls moved on to Region IX basketball, where they had outstanding freshman seasons for the Central Wyoming College Lady Rustlers and the Sheridan Lady Broncs.

Losing a pair of college-level players in a season is usually the mark for a step down in performance but not at Wyoming Indian under Moss.

She took a small, but talented group of girls and built yet another champion in Alfred P. Redman gym.

The Lady Chiefs rolled through the Class 2-A West regional tournament in amazing fashion, winning via the 40-point mercy rule twice and blowing out a talented Rocky Mountain squad by nearly 40 in the finals. Then it was on to state for three more wins and the big trophy.

The secret isn't really much of a secret at Ethete. Moss is a stickler for fundamentals, a role model to her girls, an excellent tactician, and a great motivator.

She remains Wyoming's winningest head basketball coach and recently received honors as the Wyoming coach of the year. She is nominated for national high school coach of the year as well.

The Lady Chiefs are the best small-school basketball program in the state, and the argument can be easily made that the Lady Chiefs are the best program overall

Moss coaches junior high volleyball and would have been on the 400-meter oval once again as a high school track coach, but the program was sidelined this spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She teaches health and high school physical education and incorporates all types of games and lifetime skills into her very popular classes at Wyoming Indian.

"Boss Moss," as her nickname implies, is solid on fundamentals and a no-nonsense coach at practice and when the game starts. At other times she is a confidant, counselor and the best supporter the young women at Wyoming Indian can ask for.

Her shopping trips with her basketball and track teams at culminating events are also the stuff of legend among her players.

Wyoming Indian sets the standard for everyone else in Class 2-A. If you don't have a pair of solid guards, and an effective press breaker it's going to be a long night for you and your team as an opposing coach against the Lady Chiefs.

Calling a timeout at the appropriate second is a skill that opposing coaches quickly master, since a Moss-coached team can score a dozen points in 30 seconds when the girls hit their stride.

The back-to-back titles bring her total state championships at Wyoming Indian to four.

Once again she loses some talented seniors to graduation, but Wyoming Indian basketball isn't going anywhere. Look for more of the same exciting, championship level play in just a few months.