Alcovy’s Lady Tigers are 2-3 on the season. One of those wins came against a now 5-1 Marietta team the Lady Tigers beat Novermber 21, 58-53, that advanced to the second round of state last year. Lady Tigers’ coach David Baker speaks about the win and his team in this Q&A.
The Covington News: Tell me a little bit about how you guys were able to get the win.
David Baker: We had a very balanced offensive attack, mainly led by my senior Ayanna Wimbush. She had 24 points. My other senior guard, Kiara Bagby, she had 13 points and then my junior Tierra Hodges, she had 12. My senior point guard Keidra Sears really set the tone as far as distributing the ball and protecting the ball. The girls just really played up to the level of competition we had. Marietta is a very good all-around team. We just played to our strengths, sharing the ball (on offense) and on defense everybody just stuck to their assignments and we came out with a ‘W.’
CN: Okay coach, you guys got a couple of losses early, but you told me this is a process. Talk a little bit about where you guys are since that scrimmage against Gainesville versus right now.
Baker: We’re still keeping things simple. We still want to definitely limit our turnovers. We want to continue to play a full four quarters. That’s going to be our goal all year. The non-conference games are definitely set up to look at some teams from other region so we can kind of assess where our team is prior to entering the region. I feel like with each game we did limit our turnovers and with each game we got to see a different style. But we also have been consistent in the things we do well.
CN: Coach you told me you wanted to be defense-first, so how did your defense play to keep them contained?
Baker: The defense was solid. We forced a lot of turnovers. We’re still not in basketball shape just yet, so we haven’t really had a chance to get out and show people how we press. We just put in a new defensive set this week and the girls really bought into it and really executed it.
CN: Anything else you like to add about how your team played?
Baker: They played together. It was a total team effort, even my role players that came off the bench did an excellent job coming in and just playing team ball and when they weren’t in the game just talking on that bench.
