The next step is finally here.
Kierra Erby vividly remembers the emotions she and her Columbus High School girls basketball teammates felt last season when their season ended with a loss to Northwest Rankin in the Class 6A North State tournament.
Erby and the Lady Falcons don’t want their to be any crying tonight.
That’s why Columbus (25-2) is focused and ready to take on Horn Lake at 7:30 tonight at Southaven High in the semifinals of the Class 6A North State tournament. The winner will punch a ticket to the state tournament in Jackson and advance to the North State title game at 7 p.m. Saturday against the winner of the Jackson Murrah-Southaven game.
Erby has started on the varsity team for three seasons. The senior captain said the team has become better disciplined and has an improved work ethic. She said the team also learned the importance of playing as a team and little things like boxing out after losing to Northwest Rankin 85-69 last season in the second round at Horn Lake High.
Columbus exacted some revenge Monday with a 63-34 victory against Northwest Rankin. But Erby said that victory was just another step the team plans to take on its way to the ultimate prize: a state title.
“As a team, you have to set a goal, and our goal was to work with a purpose,” Erby said. “After that, it was to win the district. Now it is to win state. To get to those goals, you have to go step by step.”
Erby feels she reflects the maturation of the team. She said her defense has improved, and that mind-set is critical because Columbus isn’t the biggest team, so it has to play solid defense and play strong in the post to control its defensive backboard. The ability to do that often allows Columbus to get the ball to point guard Kiandria Patterson, who enjoys pushing tempo and creating easy shots for herself and for her teammates. “The program has gotten better because we have girls who want to come to practice and work every day,” Patterson said. “They want to be the bet they can be and be competitive on the floor. Coach has stepped her game up, and that has helped us elevate our game to the next level.”
Patterson and junior classmate are the scoring engines that drive Columbus. But the development of players like Daisha Williams, Kameron Corrothers, Brelana Coleman, Laterrica Jefferson, Porchia Brooks, and others has given the Lady Falcons more depth and more weapons.
Patterson, who like Proffitt is busy in the offseason playing Amateur Athletic Union basketball, said the improvement she and Proffitt have made on that circuit mirrors the steps the Columbus High players have taken to raise their play.
Columbus High coach Yvonne Hairston agrees the presence of Patterson and Proffitt has shown the rest of the Lady Falcons what it takes to get better. She said all of the players have responded to that example and have played their roles exceptionally well to help the team return to the place in the North State tournament where its 2010-11 season ended.
For Hairston, who came up in the Columbus school system coaching ranks and served as a varsity assistant coach for then head coach Amanda Brabham for two seasons, it has been extremely satisfying to see the program mature. Now in her fifth season as head coach, Hairston feels the team will be ready tonight for a long bus ride and a tough opponent.
“We went into the game last year not knowing what to expect and the speed of the game and the physicalness of the game,” Hairston said. “This year, we know. We know what to expect and what the tempo is going to be like.”
Hairston coached in the seventh and eighth grades before moving up to the ninth grade and then the varsity. She saw the potential in the young players and always believed the program could become one of the state’s best. She attributes the development to hard work and the involvement of great coaches like Clay Armstrong, Gwen Johnson, and Warren Brooks.
Tonight, Columbus hopes to showcase the results of all of that hard work.
“You’re good at what you spend time doing,” Hairston said. “They have really put the time in, and you can see it in their development.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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