Over the last four years, the girls basketball program has changed coaching staff three times.
Three senior Lady Panthers, Ava Hendrie, Lilliana Burrows and Gaby Roach, have experienced the coaching changes first-hand.
“We just flat out compete a lot more which has led to a lot of our success, so I would say competing is a big difference [to previous years],” Hendrie said.
Starting with Emily Sweeney their freshman year, Anna Atha their sophomore and junior year and now Brandon Cerezola, change has been a constant.
Cerezola has brought a new level of intensity to the team by making the girls compete at a faster pace. This has caused the team to reach new heights in their gameplay and succeed enormously.
The Lady Panthers have shown their success throughout the season. They finished the regular season 20-5 after defeating Northside 48-29. Starr’s Mill entered this week’s region tournament as the no. 2 seed.
“Maturity and growth [is the most notable change on the team],” Cerezola said. “You see a lot of kids grow up and be able to handle success, which I think is the hardest thing to do.”
In their game against Northside, the Panthers and Lady Patriots began with intensity on both sides of the court. This was quickly shut down by the Panthers who ended the quarter with a 10-4 lead. The Panthers continued this intensity in the second quarter where their lead grew to 12 points by halftime, 25-13..
“This season we have a lot more intensity and more speed and competitiveness [compared to previous years],” Roach said.
In the third quarter, the game play slowed down but the intensity remained with the Panthers shutting down almost all shots and increasing their lead to 39-18. The final quarter, they kept up their game play but not without some fight from the Lady Patriots. This ultimately led to a 48-29 win.
“[Leadership is] one thing they’ve encompassed in their ability to connect individually with each kid and being able to lead them through your relationship,” Cerezola said. “That has kind of helped our team stay together through some success we’ve had.”
The Lady Panthers won the first round of the Region 3-AAAA tournament against Jonesboro High School, 59-35. They advance to the region semifinals where they will face Griffin at 7 p.m. Thursday night.