Lady Warriors hoping for big week
Suddenly, the Gordon Central High School girls basketball team has hit a rough spell.
But with a win over Dade County Tuesday night (details were not available at press time) and two non-region games Friday and Saturday evening, it seems the Lady Warriors definitely have a chance to move past their woes of the past couple of weeks.
“We’re trying to get back on track,” Gordon Central heaad coach Maci Mills said. “We had a rough week and the girls know it, but I’m still proud to coach these girls and I feel like if we can come out (against Dade County)and play well, we’ll get this turned back around. I know the girls are working hard and their attitudes are really good, so that makes me feel like we’ll be okay.”
They began this week looking to snap a fivegame losing streak after they fell to 2-2 in AA Region 7 with a pair of losses last week. They began the week with a 46-37 setback to Pepperell and then lost at Fannin County, 61-33, last Friday night.
“The loss to Pepperell was a real tough because it was our first game back with (senior post) Kim (Passley) and we had a chance to win the game because we played good defense, but we didn’t get it done,” Mills said.
“Fannin County was at the state tournament last year and they played really well against us. And right now, they look like they are the best team in our Region. But we need to put what happened to us last week behind us and learn from it and come out this week and give a great effort.”
She said things should get a little easier this week because they’ll have the time with two non-region games this Friday night and Saturday to work on that playing rotation and getting Passley back into it.
“We struggled with working Kim in last week, just because it added another player to our lineup and so we’ve got to keep working
on having one more player out there,” Mills said. “But Kim looked good and it gives us a chance to add more depth to our rotation, so I know we’ll be fine because she is a good player. It’s just that when you add a player like that
have good athletes. So I know they’re going to be tough. All the teams in our Region are well-coached. So to me, we have to be ready to go every night. We have to be ready to play every game. But I am looking forward to it and I think the girls are itching to get the Region games started, so this is a big week for us and hopefully we can come out and play our style and play well for three games in a row like we did at our tournaments.”
The game against Hiram ended an 11-day layoff as they used last week to prepare for this week and the Region games that lie ahead, but before the recent layoff, the team played six games, or nearly half of its schedule, during the Christmas break in 10 days. In other words, Echols said, everything balances out.
“I feel like it all evens out,” Echols said. “We’re halfway through the season and we’ve played half our games. I know we are just finishing a layoff, but we had played a bunch of games in a short amount of time before this break we’re just now finishing, so it all evens out. But I thought last week was a good week for us.
“We worked on a lot of fundamentals and just worked on continuing to get better as a team and getting better individually and I felt
like we did that. I know the girls worked really hard last week and I thought every practice was good. Now we’re ready to go play our Region games and see how we do. And I know we want to get off to a good start in Region, so it’s a big week for us.”
Presently, Cass has the best record of anyone in the Region with an excellent 14-1 record that includes a current 13-game win streak as they get ready to start their league schedule. Calhoun, which starts four underclassmen, has an outstanding 10-3 mark with one of those losses a three-point setback to Cass at the Adairsville tournament to close out 2021.
Hiram has the third-best record in the league at 6-6 and then Blessed Trinity is 4-9 while Cartersville is 2-4 and Woodland stands 2-9.
“The record that matters from here on out is what you do in Region,” Echols said. “That’s the only record that counts now. Some of these teams, you just discard their record. We know they’re good and we know we’ve got to be ready.”
Besides the two region games, they end the week Saturday night in Dalton and the Catamounts also handed the Lady Jackets one of their three losses as the teams have split their first two meetings of the season.
Next year, the rivals will be in the same region with each other with Dalton moving down a classification from 6A.