There’s not much for coach Brent McNeal to say about tomorrow’s game against South Gibson.
“It’s a championship game,” he said. “It speaks for itself.”
Indeed, McNeal’s top-seeded Lady Hawks tipoff Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with No. 2 SGC in the championship game of the District 12-3A tournament at South Side. Also at stake is a No. 1 seed in next week’s region tournament.
No. 3 North Side and No. 4 Liberty play for third place in the consolation game at 6 p.m.
It will be South Side’s seventh consecutive appearance in a district tournament championship game. In McNeal’s 11-year tenure, the Lady Hawks are 4-2 with wins in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021 and runner-up finishes in 2018 and 2020.
The Lady Hawks (18-2 overall) haven’t played since Feb. 5. Meanwhile, SGC (20-6) has played some non-district games.
“They’ve played a few games to keep game speed going, while we’ve been going in practice daily,” McNeal said. “I know our kids are so ready to battle against someone other than each other. We’ve had time to work on us and clean up a lot of things that we have seen throughout the regular season.”
The Lady Hawks are 2-0 this season against SGC, with a home win Jan. 18 and a road win Jan 28 in Medina. But just like the Associated Press’ final statewide rankings, none of that matters now.
“Everybody’s record is 0-0, so at this time of year, we are asking 14 to 17 year-old kids to lock in for a month, and just have one more point on the board than the other team. With South Gibson’s team, you just know they shoot it extremely well and are well coached and disciplined, so we have to make sure we set the tone of the game.”
[COVER PHOTO: South Side’s No. 2 Ti’Mia Lawson plays against South Gibson in the Lady Hawks’ senior night win Jan. 18.]
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