“This team just has fight, they always play hard.” said junior Maya Brewer, speaking of what it has taken to sit at the teams current record of 17-6. While it seems like a cliché thing to say when speaking of a successful program, the proof is in the pudding. After several consecutive successful seasons under head Coach Jeff Lacy, the girls continue to remain a team that opponents have to spend a little extra time preparing for. Brewer attributed the team’s success this year to focused, challenging practices designed to prepare them for whatever competition thinks they’re ready for Northtown next. She also admitted that Coach Lacy has been more stern with the team this year, making sure everyone is locked in to play. This may be in the absence of a single star player being able to pick up slack; the team must now operate as a single cohesive unit, yet has still duplicated the success of past years.

The cohesiveness of the team has been achieved through a shared vision and strong bond. Brewer stated that the team does a lot of things together outside of just playing ball and, of course, makes good use of their playing time together as well.

“Something we also do that I like is having team sleepovers. It’s kind of embarrassing but those are always good bonding and a lot of fun.”

However, each season does have hardships that all teams hoping to achieve greatness need to overcome.

“We had trouble putting teams away early on. And we had to work a lot on boxing out.” said junior Kianna Lane, speaking of troubles the team had to address at the beginning of the season. Seeing as how seventeen of their twenty-three games played have been successfully put away (many of them close contests), the girls have obviously shown improvement and the fortitude to finish games strong.

Now, as the end of the season approaches (which Kianna said is her least favorite part of playing each year), the girls are already looking to build a successful team for the 2015-16 season. With only two seniors currently on the team, there will be an abundance of talent left to make sure success is the case for next year.

“Coming off this season and making the changes we need to in order to win conference and districts next year is all we will be focused on,” said Lane. Being part of one of the most successful programs having represented Northtown in recent years certainly added validity to her statement. With the success of 2014 and sights set high for 2015, we have no reason to doubt that they will indeed go all the way.