Strong streaks into state
Red-hot Lady Bulldogs open play today vs. Alpena
EL DORADO - Since losing in the semifinals of the district tournament, Strong’s girls have been on a tear, stomping through the 1A 5 Regional Tournament in Emerson. The Lady Bulldogs earned a top seed in the Class 1A State Tournament in Mt. Ida.
The Lady Bulldogs take on Alpena today at 1 p.m. Alpena defeated County Line 49-40 Monday morning.
Strong (16-10) won the 7A East regular season title but fell to Hampton in what was the first game for freshman Dynasty Davis. Davis moved up to senior high after helping Strong’s junior high win 42 games in a row.
It took a game to fit the new cog into the wheel.
“That was my fault,” said Strong coach Jason Porter. “I wasn’t sure … you know when you first move a girl up from junior high, you have to work her in and figure it out. I lost that game for ‘em. If I had started her, we wouldn’t have lost that game. Now that the team is getting used to her and she knows what role she’s going to be playing, it’s kind of made the team jell. That’s what you want this time of the year.”
The Lady Bulldogs haven’t lost since and their confidence is soaring after knocking off Ouachita in the regional final Saturday night.
“The way we’re jelling now, I’m not going to say we can win the whole thing but playing like we’re playing, we’ve got a chance,” said Porter. “We’re here now. Once the girls saw Ouachita, Ouachita was 25-10 and was ranked real high. Once we got on the floor with them, we realized they weren’t up to speed with what we had. I told the girls, most of the girls up here, now, are going to be about the same speed as Ouachita.”
Porter watched Alpena’s win on Monday and said his team owns the speed advantage.
“They’ve got some real big girls but we’re going to be light years faster than them. If they were in our conference, they’d be the slowest one in our conference,” he said. “They have one really good scorer. Everybody else just does their own thing a little bit. They just try to get rebounds and stuff.
“Our big advantage will be speed, our ball handling and quickness, defi-
nitely.”
Unfortunately, Porter didn’t get to see how the Lady Leopards would react to a full court press.
“The team they were playing was big and slow, too. I’ve talked to five different coaches and they said if you can pressure them, they don’t react very well and that kind of plays into what we do,” he said.
Sophomore Abby Dean looks to be Alpena’s top offensive player. Porter said she’s a slashing guard.
“She’s easily their best player. We’re going to do her just like I’ve done the last few games. I’m going to put one of my guards on her and make somebody else do something,” said Porter. “She’s above average (athletically) but she’s not as athletic as the people I’m going to put on her. When we played Ouachita, they had a girl who was identical to what she does, a slasher. I put one of my bigger guards, Kiki Shelton, on her and made her not catch the ball.”
What Alpena lacks in speed, it makes up for in size with a pair of 6-footers. The Lady Bulldogs don’t want to get trapped in a half court game.
“We’re going to play a junk defense and make their big girls have to handle the ball. From what I’ve heard, their post players are not guards. They can’t dribble at all so I’m going to make the rest of them beat us,” said Porter. “And, just watching them today, we’re going to get up and down the floor the whole game. We’re going to push it, push it, push it. That could be the key, get an up-tempo game going against their half court game.”
Porter said in the game he witnessed, the officials “let them play.” That’s normally a good sign for teams that like to press all over the court.
“We just have to step up our pressure on everything. It plays into what we want to do now that we’ve got a full squad,” said Porter, who said Davis’ arrival has fortified the entire squad. Shelton gets to attack from a more natural wing spot and Ladasia Williams now has more room to operate around the basket. “When Dynasty was in the seventh grade, this group played with her. She was the same way in the seventh grade. She was a scoring point guard,” he said. “They’ve known all year, when Shanee Story went down, we’ve needed one piece. From the first night, they’ve been all for it for what we’re trying to do. Everybody sees it just makes us a better team.”
Porter likes his team chemistry and likes the state tournament bracket even better.
“I can say this, we got the best draw by winning that regional,” he said. “The top two teams in the state are on the other side. And, they’re really good. Wonderview got upset in their regional so they got put over with Norfork.”
Despite the team’s success this season, getting to the state tournament was never a foregone conclusion. The young pups are feeling no pressure despite running with the state’s big dogs.
“This bunch is used to winning. That’s one good thing about them,” said Porter. “But, also, they’ve never been to a state tournament. The way they reacted in regionals and these last few days, they’re relaxed. They’re focused. They’re not joking around. A lot of them play AAU ball in the summer at a high level, they’re used to playing in big tournaments and big gyms. It won’t be too big for us.”