Growing pains for Lady Broncos
Kendall Kesling pushes the pace for the Lady Broncos during Thursday’s action at MTSU.
Highs and lows are what coaches expect from a young team. And if you’re going to hit some of the lows, it’s better to do it in camp than in the regular season.
The Boyd Lady Broncos ran into a buzzsaw Thursday at MTSU, falling big to Watertown and Soddy Daisy. It came two days after the team also dropped close contests to Knox West and Johnson County, showing the lineup with just seven players - six being sophomores - is going to need some time to develop if the program wants to keep up with its lofty standards from the last five seasons.
“Tuesday, I thought our effort was good and our execution wasn’t bad - shots just weren’t falling,” said coach Tim Page, who has guided the Lady Broncos to 152 wins in six seasons and four runner-up finishes in the TSIAA state tournament. “Today was the first time where I think getting down on the scoreboard got us down mentally. We didn’t have the same energy this morning against Watertown, but it did get better as the day went along.”
With its middle-school players off at another play day in Coffee County, Boyd had to go into battle with its seven high schoolers Thursday while facing a pair of region qualifiers last season. Watertown and Soddy Daisy (winners of 20 and 19 games, respectively, last year) followed the same script early in each matchup: work the ball around until the Boyd defense fell behind, then bury open triples.
It was a barrage of outside shots from the Purple Tigers and Trojans that put Boyd in double-digit holes in the first quarter of each game. And both times, the Lady Broncos were never able to dig their way out of the deficit.
“Some of the times it was on us. When we went zone against Watertown, they immediately got their best player an open corner 3 and it opened the floodgates. And sometimes, we’d be in the correct rotations 2-3 times in a row, but they’d just find one extra swing and hit a contested look,” said Page. “We’ll live with teams hitting contested shots, but we’ll have to coach it up better to get us in the right defenses for the right situations come the regular season.”
Boyd did get a chance to find some levity - and win - by the end of the day. The sophomores took part in a JV game and ended up winning by 20, with senior captain Brooke Kesey sitting out and serving as an assistant coach instead.
“I think there was one point we got down seven and Brooke took over the huddle and we went on a 10-0 run,” said Page. “Sometimes as a coach, those are the best moments. They took some personal responsibility for what was happening on the court and ended up taking care of business. Hopefully we can carry that into our final day at MTSU.”
Boyd is scheduled to face Mt. Juliet and BGA Friday before heading to Gatlinburg next week for more summer action.
