Straughn hosts New Brockton, 2nd time to meet
Published 7:11 pm Thursday, December 18, 2008
Straughn will be vying for its second win over New Brockton tonight as both teams meet on the Tigers’ court.
The Tigers (4-5) defeated New Brockton (5-2) earlier in the season, contributing one of their two losses.
Straughn coach Todd Reynolds said tonight’s game will come down to who can play the best ball.
“The game is winnable, but it’s going to be extremely hard,” Reynolds said. “New Brockton plays us very hard every time we play them. It’ll basically come down to who can execute their style a little bit better.
“(New Brockton) likes to pound it inside and work the boards,” he said. “We’re more of a pressure style team and take the open shot type of team. If we can get off to a good start, we’re going to be pretty hard to beat.”
At practice this week, Reynolds said that boosting his players’ “intensity” level has been the main key.
“It’s been intense trying to get their intensity up,” he said. “(Wednesday) will be more of an execution style of practice and game atmosphere type situation to try to get them ready to close in on three really tough games in the next four days.
“We’ve got New Brockton (today) and Georgiana coming in, who’s 8-1 and then we’ve got Dale County who is also 8-1,” he said. “It’s just been one of those kind of years where you can’t catch a break. You get very few games where you can take a deep breath and sigh because the next team that’s coming is just as good or better than the team the night before. It just requires a development of mental toughness.”
In order to be successful, Reynolds said his team must be accurate in crucial areas of the game.
“We have to run the game plan and execute the offense and cut down on turnovers and do a better job of rebounding,” Reynolds said. “I can see progress in all the areas, but the final point is to get to where we have some consistency in these areas as opposed to having a good game in this area and having a bad game the next week.”
As far as finding his five key players, Reynolds said they will see a lot of playing time coming up.
“We’re still working on that consistency,” he said. “I pretty much got my first five ironed out, but right now we’re going to start developing a rotation around them using a lot of minutes off the bench, keeping people fresh.”
Tip off in Straughn is at 4:30 p.m. with the B-team boys.