This past season the Varsity Girls Basketball team suffered a 1^st round play-off exit at the hands of Cedar Ridge 60-50; however, this will not be the last you see of them. In fact, they are on an upturn that could amount to a historic season in 2020.

The potential for the upcoming season stems from a place you wouldn’t expect. The JV team. They’re coming off an unprecedented season in which they finished undefeated, 24-0. More often than not they would quite literally run teams out of the gym, winning their games by an average of 33.5 points per game. In fact, they won every game by double digits with the exception of 2 games winning by 9 both times.

“We played a lot of games, when we get into the 3rd or 4th quarter and the other teams were winded, and our girls were like-let’s go,” Junior Varsity Coach Brandi Malveaux said. “So that’s when we really started fast breaking on teams… and these girls have a hunger that I just didn’t see in a lot of other teams.”

Having accomplished so much, coaches are hoping to translate that talent and success up to the varsity next season.

“As far as confidence, it will help them tremendously next year on varsity,” Varsity Coach Annette Steward said. “I’ve already got some of the underclassmen on JV looking at next year wanting to fill starting positions, and challenge some of the starters coming back, so their mindset of wanting to compete on varsity level is already there and we are just trying to build off that.”

“I think that that’s going to translate to varsity next year,” Coach Malveaux said.

As for the Varsity itself, it is coming off a first round playoff loss in a season that saw them finish 28-8, and 2^nd in district, led by a bevy of underclassmen.

“I think we did an excellent job this year, we went from 4th place last year to 2nd place this year, in district we only had 2 losses, we were really close to being district champions, so we improved a lot,” Coach Steward said. “The 4 that we are returning, 3 are starters this year, so it’s going to bring a lot of experience and leadership and help the mesh with kids who come up from JV.”

With the culmination of talent returning and coming up from the Junior Varsity, lofty expectations now hang over the program looking to contend for state.

“As far as next year we look to be pushing for that district title, it’s something that Langham Creek hasn’t had in girls’ athletics since 1988, so that’s something that we definitely want to do,” Coach Steward said. “Now that we are in a different region, making a deeper playoff run, this year we were 1 and done, but in the past 2 years in a different region, we had gone to the 3rd, 4th round in playoffs.”

“I’m excited about this group,” Coach Malveaux said.