With just one senior on his roster and one season of junior-varsity competition on his players’ resume, Kevin Shelton understandably was apprehensive before Veritas Christian launched its inaugural varsity girls basketball campaign in November.

“You always wonder how you’re going to do,” said Shelton, the coach responsible for guiding the Eagles during their transition to the highest level of competition in the Kansas Christian Athletics Assn. “We have some really good competition. There’s some talented, established schools.

“I was concerned at the beginning of the year how we’d do.”

In just three months, concern has given way to confidence – that Veritas made the right decision, and that the Eagles are on the cusp of joining their male counterparts as a program to be reckoned with at the state level.

Armed with a respectable 10-10 record, Veritas enters this week’s KCAA state tournament in Wichita as the No. 7 seed in an eight-team field. That means a first-round date Thursday with second-seeded Topeka Cair Paravel, which owns two blowout victories over the Eagles this season.

So what if this season’s road to state-championship glory doesn’t wind through the tiny private school at the northern edge of Lawrence? That hardly was a realistic goal when the Veritas administration decided a year ago to field a varsity team in 2005-06.

Instead, the idea was to take the first step in building a successful program while gaining valuable insight and experience along the way. The fact that, worse case, the Eagles will finish one game below .500 is simply an added bonus.

“We’ve seen a lot of improvement from a lot of young girls,” Shelton said. “That’s something as a coach I look for. I’m not saying we don’t want to win. I want to see the girls get better, and as they improve, the wins will come. …

“To see how they’ve matured over the season, how they’ve learned to play together … you see the joy in their faces. They’ve had fun in this process.”

And the good times are just getting started.

Once the curtain closes on the current campaign, Veritas will bid farewell to forward Grace Barclay – a starter who functions primarily as a role player on the low blocks – and no one else.

This year’s leading scorer and rebounder, Kristie Tiegreen, is just a sophomore. Another sophomore, Adi Willems, is second in both categories. In fact, the Eagles are so young that the player responsible for hitting the game-winning free throw in Thursday’s regular-season finale, Susan Wilson, is just an eighth grader.

Add to the current mix another batch of young reinforcements who led the junior-high program to a runner-up finish at last weekend’s state tournament, and Shelton sees success on the horizon.

“The promise at Veritas is great with all the girls we’ve got returning,” Shelton said. “We’ve got a good opportunity to succeed the next couple of years.

“The girls have worked hard this year. If they continue that next year, I see (competing with the top teams) happening next year and the year after.”