The Highlands High School varsity girls’ basketball team has been doing great, their season started slow before taking off with a win after win. Recently, the team participated in a tournament, but not just any. They competed in the 36 District Championship where they were victorious, moving on to regionals where they won that too.
The 36 District Championship is a tournament teams compete in before regionals and can often depend on if a team makes regionals at all. According to the varsity girls head coach, Jaime Richey, Highlands has made regionals almost sixteen times in a row. Of course, Highlands once again made regionals and competed Sunday night.
Regionals went extremely well for the girls’ basketball team. They won the first round and will be continuing on to the next round of the tournament on March eighth,
Richey explained the region-round game, she said, “We won our first-round game last night against Notre Dame so now we play Friday night against Ryle.” If they win Friday, they continue, and Richey believes they are up for the challenge. Richey said, “Semi-finals is Friday and it’s one and done, so if you lose, you’re out. After we win, we play Saturday.”
The tournament is intense, but the team has been dominant. So what have they done to get to this level? They practice six days a week, almost every day, according to Richey.
The highlight of the Sunday night tournament round was described by senior Kasey Gross, a forward on the varsity basketball team.
She said, “Definitely the first thing that comes to my mind is Marrisa Green’s game-winning shot against Notre Dame, that was incredible and put us up to win.” The game was a close one, and she said, “It was a very nerve-racking game because it was so close but in the end, it went well.”
This was seconded by senior Amaya Barton, who explained how with only eight seconds left, junior Marissa Green scored the two points, leaving NDA with only 2.4 seconds to try to come back.
Barton said, “We were tied, so we really needed those two points.” The game was close, and she mentioned that before Green’s shot, they were getting nervous. Barton said, “When we were tied, I know me and Kasey were worried it would be our last game.”
Thankfully, Sunday was not the seniors’ last game. As mentioned before, the birds have semi-finals on Friday and are training harder than ever for their chance to make finals and compete on Saturday.
Still, the basketball team is prepared. On the upcoming game, Kasey said, “I’m excited and I’m ready, I think we can pull through.” Good luck to the girls’ basketball team, and remember to show up on Friday to cheer our players on through the semi-finals.