The girls basketball team will play its regional semi-finals game against Boswell at the Wilkerson-Greines Activities Center in Fort Worth on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. If the Lady Hawks win the semi-finals and the finals on Feb. 24, they will advance to the state tournament.
“You lose [and] you go home,” assistant coach Byron Dixon said. “In tournaments, preseason and regular season, you can live to fight another day. Here, there is no tomorrow. You either win, or you will be on the couch.”
This will be the team’s first time playing against Boswell, who is ranked No. 7 in the Texas 6A division with a win streak of nine games. Head coach Lisa Branch said Boswell can be seen as a smaller, similar team of the Lady Hawks. To prepare, the team has been practicing ball handling and shots.
“Basketball is a game that runs on,” Branch said. “We’re playing a state-ranked team, so anything is possible, [but] our end goal is to win state.”
Branch said losing in the third round last year left a bad taste in the current seniors’ mouths, causing them to play with a chip on their shoulders this year. Six of the 12 players are seniors.
“Our senior group is very poised and very composed,” Branch said. “They’re very mature, locked in and focused when they’re [playing]. They’re a pretty scary group.”
Though the team has faced challenges with starting slow and not being able to finish in games, they’ve been working to overcome it. They’ve been running plays and have been trying to get past the nerves individually.
“Each individual player has grown in their own talents [and] that has made the whole team grow,” captain Paris Bradley said.
The team has been preparing on and off the court by watching film, doing ice baths and team bondings. Guard Sydnee Jones said the nerves before intense games often take over, but the captains talk the players through it.
“I think it’s our team chemistry and how much we all love each other as a team, on and off the court, that makes for good plays on the court,” Jones said. “We just gel well together.”
In the 2021-22 season, the team was fourth in the district and in the 2022-23 season, they finished first. Making it to the state tournament will be the first time in history for the Lady Hawks. The team lost to Little Elm in the quarterfinals game last year on the exact same day and arena in which they beat them this year.
“If we’re able to win [this weekend], then that’ll be a first and anything beyond that will be a first — that’s what drives them,” Branch said. “They want to be the first.”
