There was mystery surrounding North Pike girls basketball team entering Class 5A before the season started.
Mystery solved.
Following a 38-34 win over West Harrison, North Pike advanced to the Elite Eight in Jackson for the first time in nearly 10 years.
What’s more impressive is that on the heels of back-to-back nine-win seasons the Lady Jaguars more than doubled that win total heading into Friday’s quarterfinal matchup with the Ridgeland Lady Titans at Jackson State.
Head coach Laura Lee Holman is in her third year as North Pike’s head coach and she talked about what the adjustment has been like, not only for her, but for the players since she decided to leave New Hope High for North Pike.
“My first year there, I was just trying to teach them how to practice,” Holman said. “Expectations are very high. That was the main thing, just trying to teach them how to practice.”
Holman explained what she and assistant coach Brooke Eccles emphasize, which has helped the team build on some of the success the program had under Lance Golman.
“My assistant has done a great job of keeping us all on the same page,” Holman said.
The Lady Jaguars don’t blow teams away offensively, but they’re a gritty defensive team that will play extremely hard for 32 minutes. That’s the culture the coach said she wanted to bring to Summit.
“It’s a ball hungry team,” Holman said. “I’m the old-school type of coach. If you don’t give me what I want, you won’t get on the court. I’ve taken losses early trying to instill that in the program. Now they enjoy coming to practice. They love to work hard.”
North Pike’s four seniors — Tykia Barnes, Jessica Patterson, JaNeisha McCray and Setra Ott — were sophomores when Holman arrived. The coach said she believed the team’s success stems the players who are now juniors and seniors getting playing time three years ago.
The four seniors, as well as junior Kadasia Wansley, sophomore Nya Sapp and eighth grader Amari Davis are key contributors to the team’s success.
Davis led the team with 16 points to help punch a ticket to Jackson despite not being able to practice with the team every day because she attends the middle school.
While some people made a big deal out of the Lady Jaguars moving up to 5A, Holman contended that they did not worry too much about it.
“We tried not to make a big deal out of it,” she said. “We played in one of the toughest 4A districts in the state the last two years.”
In addition to the last two years of rugged district play, the coach said her team’s summer schedule also helped them prepare for the new challenge.
“Our summer schedule was hectic,” she said with a chuckle. “We played some 6A and 8A teams over the summer. We didn’t win much during the summer, but they gained confidence. We played Tupelo, St. Martin and an 8A team from Georgia and were right there.”
The Lady Jags will have had a week to prepare for Ridgeland after last Friday’s win that the coach believes will help the future of the program.
“I told the seniors, ‘You have no idea what you did for this coaching staff and the program,’ ” Holman said. “That’s what builds tradition. To be able to do that with this group in my third year is priceless.”
North Pike will take on Ridgeland at noon Friday at Jackson State University.
