V. Hugh Lewis II Jefferson Jimplecute
The Jefferson Lady Bulldogs have done it again and are headed towards the State Playoffs.
Tuesday night’s defeat of West Rusk 65-48 cinched beginning of the ladies playoff run.
“The game against Arp [today] will wrap-up district for us,” said Girls Athletic Director and Head Basketball Coach Mark Allen. “With a bye next week, we probably won’t have a game next week unless we pickup a warm-up game.”
Allen said “our next opponent could still change a little next week as most teams have a couple games left, but we’ll probably catch New Diana for bi-district” games on either February 5 or February 13.
The location of the playoff games has not been set as of press time, but Allen guessed it would be in either Longview or Hallsville.
“The girls prefer Hallsville,” said Allen, “so I’ll be putting in for that today.”
As far as rankings go, the Lady Bulldogs are #529 in the State, #67 in Division 3A, and #119 in Region II, but Allen doesn’t put a lot of stock in rankings.
“The things I look at, and the girls realize, is how we play,” he said. “Take Tatum for example, they’re #9 in State according to Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, but when we played them here we led them after three quarters. Then we made some mistakes in the fourth quarter which cost us the game. With Hooks we went right down to the wire and they’re 15th in State or higher,” he said. “We have eight losses, two of them to Tatum, three to Hawkins, and both teams are picked up pretty high in the state. That’s five of our losses to those two teams. We’re right there and it’s a matter of who’s having a good ballgame that night.”
Allen is extremely proud of this year’s team and how they play and what they bring to each game.
“I’m real proud of the senior group we have,” he said. “They’ve been with me for a while and they understand our expectations and what we want from them. They understand our traditions that we have has they’re a part of it. We expect to be in the playoffs and expect them to do well. We plan on winning and to do well.”
They will play Arp starting at 5p today in Arp.
“Things are always a little tougher going on the road,” Allen said. “[Arp] has gotten better since our last game (Jefferson won 70-15), and they’ve been looking pretty good. But we’ve been balanced in our scoring and in our game against Waskom we had six girls in double figures. We have a lot of contributions from several girls and a good total team effort with the team we have this year.”
The Lady Dawgs are 23-8 so far this season.