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With a new year comes a new attitude. At least that is what Smith County girls basketball coach Matt Ferrell is stressing.
Since starting off the year with back-to-back losses, the Lady Owls have won 12 of their last 14 games. Friday night they had the opportunity to avenge one of those two losses during that stretch.
Hosting Cannon County, Smith County made up for that 10-point December 19th loss doubling up the Lionettes 64-32.
“Night in and night out we are the more physical team,” Ferrell said. “We challenged them the last couple of weeks about owning the boards, winning screen situations, just the physical parts of the game”.
Ferrell took responsibility for that first loss to Cannon County and set about changing the mindset of his young team.
He noted that they pressed the entire game and that he may have been a bit too stubborn to get out of it when the Lionettes were not having trouble breaking the press.
A week after that loss the Lady Owls traveled to Florida for the Tampa Bay Invitational Tournament. There they they flexed their defensive muscle by sweeping their division by an average of 30 points per game
Sophomore guard Emry Jones was named the bracket MVP but Ferrell stressed that the Lady Owls are a team that thrives on team defense and offense.
“The way our team is wired, our kids average about 10 or 12 points per game,” Ferrell said. “We don’t have any 30-point (player) games, we don’t have any 3-point scorers. Emry and Dacey (Claywell) both get their feet to the paint and just find open shooters. That really forces the help side to commit to them, letting them find open shooters.”
That sort of mindset played a key role in the 32-point win over Cannon County.
The first time around Ferrell knew that his team left something on the court. This go around though, he had the feeling it would be different.
His players felt the same and let it show with their play.
“I was so excited (about facing them again),” Jones said. “I know I wanted it more this time. We were bringing more energy this time”.
