Coming off of their season opening 52-35 win over Lewisville, the girls basketball team is looking forward to the Frisco ISD Tip Off, their first tournament of the year, as pre-district preparations kick off with a 6:00 p.m. Thursday contest against Denton at the Nest.

“We’re confident,” head coach Ross Reedy said. “We’re just really wanting to play. Not necessarily to win the tournaments, but try to do the best we can as far as getting as deep as we can, and ultimately, get as many games as we can. There’s a max of five games and you have to play well enough to play in five games and it’s double elimination. We just want to see ourselves out there and evaluate where we are at. If we can get five games out of this tournament, we will be very excited.”

The Frisco ISD Tip Off has been a successful tournament for the team with 2014 wins over Kimball, Plano East, McKinney Boyd, Duncanville to secure a back-to-back 3rd place finish in the tournament. Even though the team wants to win, Reedy says that the mindset can’t just be on winning the tournament.

“There’s always a desire of wanting to compete and dreaming big,” Reedy said. “We obviously want to have those finishes, but really, with that kind of thinking, you end up not performing well in the 1st or 2nd round, whenever it may be. Ultimately, we’re really just trying to perform well tonight and let that lead us into Friday morning, and see what that takes us. But, we definitely think we are capable of stringing some games together and playing well.”

The team is relatively young, with 5 of the 11  players on the roster freshman. For them, this is their first big tournament at the high school level with huge holes to fill from last year’s team that finished 31-4.

“Freshman do not have as much pressure,” Reedy said. “Sometimes when you’re younger, there’s not an understanding that this is a big moment. That can be bad because there’s a lack of focus, but good in the sense of not feeling overwhelmed with situations, instead seeing it as a big opportunity. I’m thinking a big part of the way they handle it, a mixture of being able to be loose and feeling like they can make mistakes, yet still taking possessions seriously and having enough focus to say ‘Hey look this is a long three days’ will determine our success.”

Having practiced for weeks with several scrimmages and a game already in the books, the girls are confident and ready to go.
“I feel pretty confident that we will go far in the tournament,” senior guard Lauren McKeen said. “As long as we stay focused for the next three days and play and win as a team.”