The Omaha North girls basketball team will look to make history on Saturday as the Vikings compete in the Class A state championship game for the first time in 26 years.
North head coach Michaela Dailey has been building for this moment. She had laid the foundation for the moment, the vision was there, she says. Dailey isn’t ashamed of attracting talented players to join the build. After all, that is the world we live in with high school sports in 2026.
Omaha North’s top three scorers this season transferred in after playing prominent roles elsewhere. Senior Justine Tcheuhchoua (Omaha Central) and juniors T’Niyah Wilson-Smith (Bellevue West) and Himayajo Metoyer (Omaha Westside) are all averaging double figures for the Vikings. Two other rotation players in junior Sanai Cotton-Welchen and sophomore Geo Tcheuhchoua also transferred from Central. They’ve all been impactful, but so has the returning core, with A’yanna Hill, Akazja Foster and Sierra Thomas leading the way.
“It’s just trusting the process,” Dailey told NebPreps after the Vikings’ 59-47 state semifinal win over Kearney. “People keep talking about these transfers. I was very, very focused on the crew that I had before they came in, because that came at the last minute.”
Only Cotton-Welchen made her decision early enough to play with the Vikings in June, and none of them filed their paperwork before the May 1 deadline. That meant they had to sit out the first three games of the season, but since everyone became eligible, the Vikings have only lost twice. Dailey credited the group she already had for inspiring the newcomers to choose North.
“My core group that are seniors now, they are the ones who built this program,” Dailey said. “We had up and down seasons, but every year we got better. That freshman group that came in with me, they stayed the course, their vision was there. Having these girls come in here to join together to create this is big, and we’re here. That’s the goal. So when these girls decided to call me up and parents called me up and said, ‘We want to make this move,’ they knew what it was coming in.”
The slow build became complete after the transfers happened.
“I was very confident in the team I already had,” Dailey said. “I was like, these girls that are with me are going to do good things, then these ones came in.”
With the influx of talented players, the Vikings’ goal of breaking the decades-long drought didn’t change; it just enhanced it.
“The goal is still the same,” she said.
Balancing Act
Dailey was already set to return her top three scorers from the 2024-25 season plus the others who had put in the time to earn minutes. With the newcomers’ arrival, managing new personalities and handling playing time became a priority.
“When I got the calls about them coming over, the expectation (state championship) was set right there,” Dailey said. The one thing about my girls, they have always been unselfish. So if you are going to come over here and this is what you want, you have to be unselfish.”
There was already plenty of familiarity with each other. Core groups of the 2025-26 team have played on club basketball teams together, which made sacrificing come easier.
As long as the Vikings were able to put egos to the side and they understood the plan, the goal of reaching the state tournament wouldn’t be too hard to achieve in Dailey’s mind.
“Yes, those girls came in and took some minutes, but if we are trying to make history, if we are trying to get to state, you’ve got to leave your feelings where they’re at,” she said.
So far so good. Dailey has balanced the different personalities and meshed them into a team that plays hard while representing its school and its community well.
“I do a good job of playing whoever is doing well,” she said. “That creates issues with opponents because they never know who I’m starting. They don’t know who I’m going to go to. The girls know that it’s the next man up and they may get tapped.”
The different personalities and the newer faces to the team only created a more competitive environment, something that Dailey said complemented her vision.
“The practices were intense; they challenged each other. Game after game, they became unselfish and started to form and play together,” she said. “It wasn’t as hard as people think because they know each other.”
Matching Energy
Dailey is a fiery coach, something she is not ashamed of but embraces. Her passion for her girls is visible on the sidelines.
Her team has some big personalities on it as well, and she’s OK with that. She doesn’t want to take that away from them.
“It’s really hard, but I’m really good at relationship building,” Dailey said. “Even the girls that came in already had relationships with me, but even the ones like Jo (Metoyer), she’s never played with me before. She knows me through the players.”
Getting to know student athletes isn’t hard for Dailey.
“I find ways to meet them where they are at and understand how to bring out their strengths and get them used to how I am,” she said. “I match their energy. So hey, you want to come in with the sassiness and the ego? I’m going to give it back to you. It was a little bit of a process for some of them, but my returners told them, ‘Hey, she doesn’t mess around; you’re not getting away with what you want. You’ve got to fall in line.’”
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing or butterflies and rainbows with this team. There have been really good days — Friday’s state semifinal win was one — and bad days this season.
Dailey hasn’t wavered. She’s been a constant.
“We had a lot of bumpy roads, but they understand I have a lot of passion for this and I care for them,” Dailey said. “I have relationships with them outside of basketball. It’s not just basketball, they see how much I pour into them outside of basketball. That’s what has drawn them in and understanding.”
Community Pride
The North Omaha community is special. It’s important and it’s a wonderful place if you take the time to get to know the people and its culture.
It’s not all the negativity you may hear about or read in the news. The people care, and they care about people who give back to the community.
That is what Dailey and this Vikings team have done. It’s provided a sense of pride, a rallying point, something the community can all agree about.
Winning a state championship for not just Omaha North but the community that surrounds it would be a generational accomplishment and something to be proud of.
“It means everything,” Dailey said. “We’re trying to bring this back to the North Omaha community. We’re trying to bring this back to OPS (Omaha Public Schools) in general.
The smile on Dailey’s face when she speaks about the school and the community around it is hard to miss.
“I’m just filled with joy of how my community has stepped up,” said Dailey, her voice trembling with emotion. “They stepped up and are holding people accountable. They are telling each other to get to Lincoln and support us. They are doing amazing things.”
Winning this season, 26-4 with the state championship game Saturday at 1 p.m inside Pinnacle Bank Arena, has proven that it can be done at Omaha North.
“This experience, everybody is seeing that we can match the energy of other school districts,” Dailey said. “People didn’t think that before. I’m winning this for my team. I want this for my team, I want this for my school, but I want it for them.”
No matter how the state championship game goes, Dailey will remember what the 2025-26 Vikings have accomplished fondly, and the accomplishments extend beyond the win total.
“It’s something special, the memories,” Dailey said. “I’m just overly joyed.”
