Lady Hawks prepared to work to compete for another state title

South Side head girls’ basketball coach Brent McNeal said he’s going to have a discussion with the person that makes the schedule for his team.

In the first four games of their regular season, their opponents were defending Class 3A champion Dyersburg, defending Class 1A champion Gibson County, defending Division II-A champion University School of Jackson and perennial Mississippi state championship contender Olive Branch.

“Two years ago, we proved ourselves to be the best, and one thing we did was we played the toughest schedule early on that we could,” McNeal said. “That’s not something I want to shy away from any season.

“It would be easy to schedule a bunch of easy games on the front end of the season, have a bunch of wins and feel good better about ourselves going into Christmas break than we should,” McNeal said. “And if winning a lot of games is your goal, then good for you.

“But my goal and the goal of every person in our program is to win our last game in March, and I guess it’s possible to do that with an easy schedule early on. But I feel better going into district play having been tested, maybe taking a few more losses than I want to, but knowing that we found out something about ourselves and improved because we did have those tough games.”

Fortunately for the Lady Hawks, they won three of those games with the one loss being against Dyersburg, who was the team that eliminated South Side in the state quarterfinals last year.

“They’re going to be tough again this year, and maybe we’ll see them again sometime down the road,” McNeal said.

The Lady Hawks appear to be in a better position early on this year than they were this time last year.

They entered the 2023-24 season bearing the weight and pressure from having won the Class 3A state championship with an undefeated record the year before, but the players who bore the bulk of that load on the court had all graduated.

A large class of freshmen entered the program and were enthusiastic about trying to live up to expectations, but they were still freshmen that had a lot to learn.

And they did learn. Possibly the best indicator of those lessons learned is the fact they didn’t win the District 12-3A regular season championship, but they went on to win the tournament, region and make it back to the state tournament.

“We’ve got most of that class back as sophomores, and they’ve all grown a lot in the past year,” McNeal said. “Three of them are starting, and the ones that aren’t are mostly coming pretty quickly off the bench.

“Jaidynn (Askins) is doing a good job as a leader for this team as a senior, and she began to really step into that role last year as a junior. And all of our senior players are doing well leading.”

This past Saturday in a 53-34 win over USJ during the Gibson County Thanksgiving Classic, there were mistakes, but McNeal and assistant coach Adrian Comer did well in addressing them during the game and ensuring first quarter mistakes didn’t pop up again in the second half to hinder their efforts.

They’re trying to do the same thing on a bigger level as the season progresses.

“Are we good enough now to compete for a spot at state? I’d like to think so, but maybe not because we are making a lot of mistakes,” McNeal said. “But we’re getting better.

“Do I think we have the potential of getting where we want to go? I’d say we definitely have potential, but it’s up to the girls in how hard they want to work and how good they want to be. If they work hard in practice and never let up during games, I like our chances. But it’s up to them.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news