Bond Break

After shooting out to quick start to earn a spot in both the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches and Texas Girls Coaches Association rankings and a 13-4 record in non-district action, the Copperas Cove Lady Dawgs dropped their first two district contests to put themselves behind the eight ball in the ultra-competitive district 12-6A. As many as four 12-6A teams have made the rankings this year and Midway (13-2, 2-0 in district) and Killeen (14-4, 2-0) are currently in the TABC Top 20 at seven and 20, respectively.

 

The Lady Dawgs rebounded with a much-needed win over the Ellison Lady Eagles last Friday to stay in contention early for one of the four playoff spots. A loss would have made that struggle much more difficult as the Lady Dawgs return to district play with the No. 7 Lady Panthers rolling into town on Tuesday, Jan. 5.

 

Senior Kacie Gatewood hopes this break and holiday tournament in College Station next week will allow her team to gel better both on the court and off.

 

“I hope the bonding bring us together more as a family and hopefully that brings us to play better together and have more chemistry on the court,” she said. “At the McDonalds Tournament I want to be successful and see where our team is at after the break. Hopefully, we can get some more wins and get our confidence back.”

 

Senior captain Alex Wilson is also excited the break and about serving her community over the break and knows the bonding that can occur during the process.

 

“We’re going to have some team bonding – a little Christmas party we had planned – and we’re going to do some community service,” she said. “We’re very excited to help our community. We think serving our community makes us better as a team because we bond over it.”

 

The Lady Dawgs will get back to it on Monday in College Station for the Aggieland McDonalds Invitational

 

The Cove Dawgs are looking forward to the break as well, mostly to rebound from their big loss at home to Ellison to open district play on Friday but also to continue the gelling and growth process needed with such a young and inexperienced squad.

 

“It’s good for us because we do have a lot of young guys,” said head coach Billy White Jr. “Normally, you want to keep going but right now it’s good for us because they got a chance to see how a district basketball game versus a regular season game. Now that they’ve got a taste of it, they can reflect on it and then get back to it in a couple weeks.”

 

White has a lot of teaching points from their loss and will have time to impart his team with some knowledge before resuming district play on the road against Midway on Jan. 5.

 

“We’ll be able to break down film and teach them on the practice court what they need to do and we’ll be ready for Midway,” he said. “We just have to learn from it and advance from it.”

 

The Dawgs will also get in some tournament action over the break in the Waco ISD Invitational beginning on Tuesday. The Dawgs have games set for 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at Waco University High School and will play at noon and 6 p.m. on Wednesday at Waco High School.

 

Both the Lady Dawgs and Bulldawgs Jan. 5 matchups with Midway will tip off at 7 p.m. for the varsity with the junior varsity squads getting things started at 5:30 p.m.