Women’s basketball catch fire out of holiday break
With roughly a month left in the regular season, the women’s basketball team has rattled off wins in eight of their last 10 matchups, including a five game winning streak, putting them in prime position to make a playoff push.
The team has caught fire at the most opportune time. Coming out of the holiday break, they have played as one collective unit stringing along timely wins as they approach the postseason. The team has their eyes set on the top seed in the playoffs in order to secure home court advantage.
“We’ve had the most success when we’ve had the top seed and we’ve played in our gym,” said assistant coach Sam Stevens, “everything from here on out is going to have some sort of sway on how everything is going to go towards the end.”
Like many other teams in the conference, the T-Birds have had to overcome adversity within their ball club when it comes to injuries and COVID infections. However, their bond as a team has been a driving force in their recent success according to guard Jayla Johnson.
“Having that trust within the team can be attributed to our recent wins,” said Johnson.
Defensively the team has been top three in the conference in defensive output. Since coming off the holiday break in December, the team on average has held opponents to below 50 points per game.
In four of their last 10 games they have even held opponents to under 40 points. In an extremely dominant game against South Mountain Community College this past week they held them to two points in the first quarter, and six points in the third on their way to a 67-36 victory.
“It’s all about the little things, putting your hands up…talking more on defense. Having that relationship with each other come together from practice and into our games,” said forward Stacey Begay.
Playing with championship traits is important to the team, head coach Kori Stephenson enstills them into her team on a regular basis.
“Our championship traits are very important, that’s something we emphasize in practice everyday. We do our best to connect them to game situations as well,” said Johnson.
At the beginning of the season the team was overlooked due to different factors including their lack of size. While on average other teams in the conference have at least four players over six feet in height, MCC only has two. While being overlooked from the outside is detrimental to a team, the lady T-Birds used this to fuel the fire and come together.
“Everybody’s hungry, everybody underestimated us because we’re a small team,” said Begay, “but as practices go along and the days go along Kori has told us to change our mindset and to be hungry.”
The talent on the teams runs deep. They have had a player awarded with a player of the week award three separate times this season with Begay winning once and Johnson winning twice. With the team coming together more each day and a strong coaching staff behind them, the T-Birds will surely be a formidable threat to make the playoffs and make some noise as well.
The team looks to extend their five game winning streak this week as they face two of the top five teams in the conference. On Wednesday they will travel to Arizona Western College who hold an overall record of 19-1 while riding a 15 game winning streak. Then on Saturday they will host Central Arizona College who claim a 16-4 overall record.
