By BRAD KEITH
TheFlashToday.com
STEPHENVILLE (January 12, 2017) — District 8-4A will have a true frontrunner in its girls basketball race after Friday, when No. 10 Stephenville (17-5) hosts No. 4 Godley (22-4) in a battle of top 10 teams.
Tipoff at Gandy Gym is about 6:15 p.m. Friday following a junior varsity contest. It’s Coaches for the Cure Night at Stephenville and admission is just $1 in addition to other promotions.
Stephenville faces challenges it has become quite accustomed to, says head coach Alan Thorpe, who has led the No. 10 Honeybees past the area round of the playoffs seven consecutive seasons.
“They have a 6-3 kid inside, what else is new?” Thorpe asked rhetorically. “It seems like everyone we play has a six-footer down there and we have to ask Jayci (Morton) to play out of position and defend her. She’s done a great job of that, and she’ll have to be solid down there again on Friday.”
Solid is a word that comes up often as Thorpe discusses playing Godley, which eliminated Stephenville in the 2015 Region I-4A quarterfinals the last time they met.
“They’re good, just really solid. They aren’t going to do anything to beat themselves,” he said. “We have to play the same game, not beat ourselves and beat solid. If we do, it’s going to be a great ball game.”
Senior Tori Shoemaker is the big post presence that causes opponents concern, but a handful of guards are also worrisome, says Thorpe.
“They have her inside and they have three or four kids that can really fill it up from there 3. Two of them are also really good penetrators,” he explained. “They try to high-low you if you go out to take away the 3, and if you take away the post game they’re going to try to hit 3s on you. They’re really balanced as far as their inside-outside game.”
Thorpe expects Godley to come out in a press and to play almost exclusively zone in the half court.
“They’re press-zone, all zone. If they get into man, that’s a rarity,” he said, before adding with a chuckle. “Now that I’ve said that they will probably come out and man us the whole game,but it will be a shock if they do.”
Thorpe has a plan, not that he’s willing to give it away more than 24 hours ahead of game time.
“We have a couple things up our sleeve we are going to try, but little wrinkles and things are only as good as you execute them, so again, the key is just to play good, solid basketball and to do it all four quarters.”
He counts junior point guard Jordan Carter as the player on his team who has impressed him most of late.
“She’s playing really solid right now, so as far as leading the team, it’s been Jordan here recently,” he said. “She’s doing a great job, she’s really taken on the point guard spot and stepped up to it nicely.”
The likes of Carter, Morton, Hailey Martin, Payton Wall and Blair Landes make Stephenville a candidate to hurt Godley’s vaunted zone defense from the outside.
“If we can hit our outside shots, it opens us up to go to the basket. The games we’ve struggled to shoot it from the outside, like against Heritage the other night, it’s been tough, but when we’ve shot it well from the outside, those have been some very good games for us,” Thorpe said. “For us, I think the outside shooting, and being balanced in our scoring are gong to be very important.”
The top 10 showdown, plus the Coaches for the Cure festivities should make for a fun atmosphere at Gandy Gym, and Thorpe hopes his players relish the opportunity.
“I think it will be a big crowd, hopefully a big Stephenville crowd. It’s also a preview of what could happen in big games down the road and the type of environment you have to play in when we get into the playoffs,” Thorpe said.
“This is huge as far as winning a district championship,” he added. “You’ve got to beat them at home because the nests time you get them on the road at their place, and it will be even tougher there.”
Be the first to comment