WINTER GIRLS COACH OF THE YEAR

Smith, team make historic championship run

Taking over for Mark Upshaw as head coach of the Hot Springs Lady Trojans just days before the start of the 2015 season, it didn’t take long for Josh Smith to discover his team’s immense potential.

After falling in the first round of the Class 5A state tournament in 2016 and losing in the quarterfinals in 2017, the Lady Trojans fulfilled their ultimate goal this season.

With the backcourt duo of Ariana Guinn and Imani Honey leading the way, Hot Springs dethroned two-time defending champion Watson Chapel with a 50-47 win at Bank of the Ozarks Arena to claim the fifth title in program history.

Leading the Lady Trojans to a 31-3 record as the only 30-win team in Class 5A, Smith is The

Sentinel-Record’s All-Garland County 2018 Winter Sports Girls Coach of the Year.

Despite knowing what it was capable of, Smith tried to limit the amount of pressure he placed on the team before the start of the year.

“I don’t think it was championship or bust; I didn’t put it on them like that,” he said. “We had a team meeting before the start of the season where we all went around and listed out our goals. For a lot of them, it was repeat at conference champs and win a state championship.

“We all knew in the back of our head what we were capable of, but after that, we didn’t really talk about it much. It was one of those things that went without saying. Whether we talked about it or not, that common goal was there. We just understood it.”

The Lady Trojans wasted little time proving their status as a Class 5A contender, winning their first six games of the season by an average of 19 points per game.

After the blistering start, an increased level of competition during a holiday tournament slate in December gave the team its first taste of adversity.

During a grueling stretch that included six games in eight days, the Lady Trojans suffered consecutive losses to eventual Class 7A runner-up Conway and Class 5A semifinalist Little Rock Parkview in the Danny and Dandra Thomas Invitational tournament and were held to their lowest scoring output of the season in a 37-29 loss to Class 6A Sheridan in the Benton Holiday Classic.

“Going through that stretch, we knew it was going to be tough,” Smith said. “When you’re playing eight games in 12 days against some quality teams, it was just such a gauntlet.”

The Lady Trojans held a team meeting after the loss to Sheridan that Smith later credited for the dramatic turnaround. Hot Springs closed the month by winning three games in three days to claim its second consecutive Kameron Hale Invitational championship at Lake Hamilton Wolf Arena.

“We just had some stuff going on outside of basketball inside the locker room where we were not functioning as a team,” said Smith. “That was what that whole meeting was about. It gave the kids a voice and it gave me a chance to sit back and get an understanding of this year’s team.

“This wasn’t last year’s team, even though it was a lot of the same pieces. I had to get an understanding for who I was coaching, what their abilities are and how are they going to respond to me in different ways. I think that was just the learning process that we had to go through.”

Closing 2017 with four straight wins and a tournament championship gave the Lady Trojans a renewed sense of confidence entering the second half of the season.

Putting the early losses behind them, the Lady Trojans pushed their winning streak to 16 games before the start of the 5A-South conference tournament at Trojan Fieldhouse.

“We never really talked about it,” Smith said of the winning streak. “We try not to talk up stuff and our kids are big on that. They think if you talk about it, you’re going to jinx it, so there’s some things we just don’t talk about.”

Playing at home for the entirety of the conference tournament, Hot Springs bested White Hall and De Queen in the first and second rounds before downing Watson Chapel to claim its second consecutive 5A-South championship and finish with a perfect 13-0 record at Trojan Fieldhouse.

“It’s just this gym and you hear stories about it, that’s the way that it has always been,” said Smith. “When you step in that gym, you have everybody on the same level that you are. You’re not down below them playing, there’s not any separation between you and the fans, there’s not separation between the fans and the coaches and you can see it bother other teams.

“We deal with the same things they do, but we’re used to it and for me, it’s definitely that homecourt advantage. It’s going to be bittersweet when the new facility is built in a couple years. It’s been a lot of fun in there.”

Despite entering the state tournament with the same lofty expectations as the two previous seasons, Smith felt that the Lady Trojans were more prepared to take that challenge head on after being bounced before the semifinals in their past experiences.

“It was just that perfect storm this year,” he said. “We learned from our mistakes in the past two years, and we pulled Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday in the state tournament. We had a day in between each game to rest and prepare for the next one. You have to be lucky at some point in time along the way, and having that schedule was part of the lucky break for us.”

One of the oldest adages in sports history is that defense wins championships. While there are numerous exceptions to that rule, Smith believes buying in on the defensive side of the ball is what allowed his team to exorcise the demons of the state tournament disappointments.

The Lady Trojans stifled their opponents on the defensive end, limiting teams to an average of 39 points per game, the second-best mark in the 5A-South conference. Hot Springs held Watson Chapel to six points below its season average in the state championship.

“I think that was the difference between this year and last year,” said Smith. “Not that we didn’t work defense before, but I think we took it to a different level this year. That was our focus from the first day in the gym, and it showed throughout the season.”

Being able to send Guinn and Honey out as champions was especially sweet for Smith, having coached the duo throughout their varsity careers and seen them grow into the All-State performers and team leaders they became.

“Watching Ariana and Imani as the players they were in the last game, I feel like it was a culmination of everything that came to a head right there in that state championship,” he said. “They were in full control. They never felt rattled. It was just about believing in one another.

“After those two guards believed in each other, they took it and everybody else in that locker room followed them. This group will always be special for me, because we kind of grew up on the court together.”

“Whether we talked about it or not, that common goal was there. We just understood it.”