By Donald Heath
Special for the Effingham Herald
STATESBORO -- South Effingham girls basketball coach Alexus Parker saw her team’s improvement inch forward in baby steps this season.
“You can’t build a city in a day,” she said after the Mustangs’ 54-39 loss to Statesboro in the play-in game of the Region 2-AAAAAA Tournament on Thursday. “Any change, it takes time.”
It was Parker’s first year as coach in Guyton and SEHS won 10 games, three more than last year. Six of the team’s 15 setbacks were by three points or less.
“It was tough for the girls, a new coach, a new culture, but I feel like this team has adapted well,” Parker said. “A lot of games we were right there, but we weren’t mentally in tune to finish them out. Those are the things we have to grow on.”
The Mustangs should be able to build from the experience in Statesboro as well. They were flattened by a 21-4 knockout punch in the final 10 minutes of the first half by the Blue Devils.
But SEHS kept fighting and its 11-0 spurt early in the fourth quarter closed a 22-point deficit, 45-23, to 11 and forced Statesboro to bring back some of its starters.
Shi’asia House led the Mustangs with 12 points, Laney Dobbs added 11 and Elena Hairston had eight.
Now the Mustangs’ attention turns to the offseason. Parker said she wants to get the girls in a summer league – sometime she couldn’t do last summer because of her late hiring – to gain experience and build cohesion.
She said she’ll emphasize building mechanics -- footwork, speed, athleticism, explosiveness, “getting them in the weight room and just continually drilling those concepts we’ve been preaching all year.”
She’ll have a lot to work with because she did not have a senior on the roster this year.
“My biggest thing (Thursday night) was to not let the loss define us because we’re a lot bigger than the losses on our schedule,” Parker said. “It’s always stick together as a family and we’ll come back next year.”
And she focused on aspects not supported by numbers after emerging from a teary lockerroom.
“I came here to develop them as young adults first,” Parker said. “We’re not just doing this for basketball. (Development) is about being a good person, a good teammate and being committed to yourself.”
ECHS boys looking to make postseason run
The Effingham County boys basketball team is the county’s last basketball team standing.
The Rebels (17-7) will be in action on Thursday at Statesboro High in either the Region 2-AAAAAA Tournament championship or consolation game.
Regardless of the results, by finishing second in the region during the regular season, ECHS is assured of a spot in the Class AAAAAA state tournament, which starts Feb. 22-23.
Before beginning the region tournament on Feb. 15 against Bradwell Institute, ECHS was one of the hottest teams in the state with 14 wins in its last 15 games.
The Rebels’ eight-game winning streak (before the region tournament) is the team’s longest winning streak since reeling off 10 straight wins twice during the 2015-16 season.
