GROWING PAINS TO PROGRESS

After working hard through tough tourneys under new coach, Meridian Lady Jackets open District 20-1A girls basketball race against defending champion Blum & Morgan

With a new head coach leading the way, the Meridian Lady Jackets have been experiencing some growing pains in the early part of the 2023-24 Texas high school girls basketball season. But while wins have been hard to come by, the level of competition has certainly had something to say about that.

After snapping an 11-game losing streak, the Lady Jackets won two games last week, knocking off Aquilla in a hard-fought 40-36 win on the road last Tuesday before wrapping up the Santo Tournament by defeating Lingleville, 26-17, on Saturday to close out their tough non-district and tournament schedule.

As the attention turns to District 20-1A competition this week, Meridian hosts the defending district Blum Lady Bobcats at 6 p.m. Tuesday before traveling to Morgan to take on the Lady Eagles at 6 p.m. Friday. Last season, the Lady Jackets finished second in district behind Blum.

“As we open up district play against Blum, I know that this is going to be a tough opening game as Blum is the defending district champ,” Meridian girls basketball first-year head coach Adan Reyes said. “With the tournaments and opponents we’ve seen, I know for sure that the young ladies have battled some great basketball teams and have played some great basketball themselves. So, I know that we have been tested and are battle ready. We look to take our experience and roll it into district play.”

After playing basketball for four years and graduating from Tulia High School, Reyes earned a bachelor’s degree at Texas Tech and a masters at Tarleton State. With coaching stints at Boles, Covington, North Crowley, Venus and Kopperl, Reyes has served as an assistant and head coach in both boys and girls basketball.

“The Meridian girls program has a history of competing and being successful,” Reyes said. “They have a history of making the playoffs in years past, so that shows that success is found out here very often.”

With six all-district players returning from last season’s playoff team, the Lady Jackets also lost three key seniors and have been looking for some younger players to step up and fill the void.

“My expectations is for us to go out there and compete as an experienced team,” Reyes said. “There s no more hiding or using inexperience and youth as an excuse. In order for them to be successful this year, they’ll need the returning starters to step up and step in and be leaders and mentors to the young players. They will also need to show poise and patience as the younger ones go through their own growing pains.”

After opening the season with a solid 43-26 victory over Oglesby, the Lady Jackets (3-14) played some tough, competitively close games despite dropping 11 straight while playing in the Hamilton Tournament Nov. 16-18 and the Santo Tournament last weekend. In the win over Oglesby, senior Canyon Stauffer led the Lady Jackets with 17 points, followed by sophomore Dyna Potter with seven.

Snapping the losing streak last Tuesday on the road at Aquilla, junior Mariana Paniagua led the Lady Jackets with 12 points, followed by senior Eve Dirkse with 11.

“Going into the Aquilla game, we knew that they would be a tough opponent as they were coming off a deep playoff run last year,” Reyes said. “I knew that we were going to have to play good basketball all around, and we did. We got great play from our guards, and our bigs stepped in and played great for us. On the defensive side, we worked hard on making opponents work hard for their shots. And for three of the four quarters, we held them to single-digit scoring.

“It definitely was a great win to lead us into the Santo tournament. We knew we would face another tough test in the B pool against Class 3A Peaster and Class 1A powerhouses Graford and Huckabay. We definitely had our hands full But I know our young ladies work hard and are always ready to go in and do what I ask them to do, and that is simply compete.”

And that’s exactly what the Lady Jackets did in the Santo Tournament, despite losing the opener in a heartbreaker to Peaster, 24-22 last Thursday as Potter led Meridian with 11 points.

After dropping back-to-back decisions to Graford, 55-29, and Huckabay, 42-17, the Lady Jackets rebounded to knock off the Lingleville Lady Cardinals, 26-17. In the win over Lingleville, Paniagua led Meridian with eight points, followed by junior Journey Stauffer with seven and Potter with six.

“Our Lady Jackets have continued to work hard and continue to improve,” Reyes said. “They understood that by going into a tournament that put us in a tough pool, nothing would come easy. My coaching staff and I continue to emphasize and re-emphasize that this is a marathon, and not a sprint.”