First I would like to thank God that we were able to play this season. There was some skepticism before it started. Of course we all wanted to play this season, but I especially wanted it for my seniors. You see this is something that you can’t get back. My seniors were Ellis Henry and Sa’Mya Smith. Ellis missed her junior year playing softball and she can’t get that back.
With all of the hoops and setbacks we had to go through, I am overall pleased with the season regardless of all of the obstacles that we encountered. We had some covid issues from all the way from the beginning of school literally to a few days before the postseason, that involved the team, opponents, to myself, the coach.
This pandemic had a lot of unforeseen things that we had not contemplated. As stated in an article earlier this year, who would have thought we would not have been able to get basketball shoes. Shoes were not available according to two Athletic Apparel companies we have used in the past. Thanks to the Briscoe Foundation, Inc. which basically is composed of former Dumas players Corey and Laquisha Briscoe. The good thing about that is that we were able to use some of the money that wasn’t used in our budget to get all four teams more washing powder and some other items that we had run out of. We plan to use the other leftover money to buy some things that will aid our offseason and things that we won't have to purchase the next school year. That part was meant for bad but he made it good, y'all know the biblical story.
There were other obstacles but WE MADE IT. Despite opponents not wanting to make up games that put us in a not so good situation in the conference we made the best out of it going into the district tournament as a four seed playing a five, Drew Central.
I expected us to be conference champs because we had posts and guards, but that’s fine I am still pleased with their overall season. The team was able to beat Drew Central in the district tournament with that game being played at home since we were the higher seed. Our next opponent would be a formidable foe in that they had beaten us by 1 on January 15, the McGehee Lady Owls. They were a number one seed so we had to play that district contest in McGehee. As most of you know that the coach is my future daughter in law. My son is my assistant and he had to leave at halftime to go and coach his boys who were a number one seed in Dumas. Our game was at 4:00 p.m. and his game at 7:00 p.m.
After winning that game we went on to play Lake Village that Saturday in Lake Village because they were a number three seed. We lost to them in the District finals which caused us to play a number three seed in Region 4 in Prescott. We beat Benton Harmony Grove by 12 points in the regionals which earned us a bid to the AAA State Tournament. We lost the next game to Centerpoint which outscored us in the first quarter only. Centerpoint went on to make the State Finals and lost to Mayflower by….
This set us up for a third place game in the regionals against our conference opponent Lake Village who had just beaten us the previous Saturday. We went on to beat Lake Village in a well fought game by the Ladycats. Unfortunately we lost the next game in state to a very good Hoxie team.
Playing all of our regional and state games at 10:00 a.m. was different. I would like to thank the Dumas School District and the Dumas Basketball Booster Club for assuring that our athletes did not have to leave Dumas those mornings to play at 10:00 a.m. We found out just how much our school district and community cared.
And now a little about our two seniors who will truly be missed. Ellis Henry was voted captain of her team by her teammates. We will miss Ellis’ true character and a good teammate. She really fit in with her team. I used to always tell her that I’m looking for you to get in the mix. I knew that Ellis could shoot the three if she just would. Well someone undoubtedly informed Benton Harmony Grove with that information or they watched her on film in Hudl. Well some of you know that she torched them with two three pointers in the 1st quarter which opened things up for us inside. She would disrupt opponents going for rebounds and knew where to go on all the defenses and all the plays.
Sa’mya Smith was a well rounded player and we will most definitely miss those electric three pointers that she has wowed the community with these past years. She led the team in a number of categories which I won’t reveal until the Sports Assembly in May. Sa’Mya made All Conference and All State for the second consecutive year. Despite the ten games missed this season she still made the 1000 POINT CLUB.
So I would like to say thanks this year to the Ladycats, Coach Larry Harris, Coach Tiffany Davis, Pastor Jack Hill, our most helpful and number two fan, our first year Athletic Director, Mr. Jacob Lanehart, our number one fan our principal, Mrs. Lorrie Holt, the Dumas School District, Dumas Basketball Booster Club, the community and last but not least OUR PARENTS. Our fans and parents came out like I have never seen especially, district, regionals and state or least as my memory holds at 63. Most of them got rooms and stayed in support of our teams. So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU AND THANK YOU.
The Ladycats ended the season with a 4-3 conference record and 10-8 overall record. They were fourth in the conference, 8AAA District Runner Up, third in Region 4 and made the Sweet Sixteen in the AAA State Tournament.
