The most important part of a season starts at the beginning. The pace and attitude of the season are set at that game.
For the Lakeland Hawks, the pace was set on Thursday—November 14 at Lewiston High School. The Hawks beat the Lewiston Bengals with an extremely close score of 55-53
The Hawks took the best of their abilities two and a half hours down the road to play their first opponent of the season, Lewiston.
Junior Landree Simon had 16 points and six rebounds during Tuesday’s game. Senior Lila Keifer had 9 points, all on three-pointers.
Even though it was close, the Hawks managed to take the lead at the very end, when it mattered most.
The girls on the team could interpret Lewiston’s plays almost as quickly as Lewiston was able to deliver them. To be able to understand what Lewiston was doing, and quickly, allowed the game to be a good one for the Hawks.
Both teams put up a huge amount of grit and were able to endure the opponent’s fights. Lewiston and Lakeland came into this game with clear records and confidence. Without the past losses weighing the Hawks down, and the fresh start of the new season, their gameplay was improved immensely.
The Hawks have some new players on the team who are still adapting to the team. Nevertheless, the chemistry between the coaches and players did help the team read each other’s moves easily.
“It helped to know what my teammates that I played with last year, what their strengths are and everything,” Karstyn Keifer said.
“We were kind of nervous at first, just first-game jitters,” Kiefer said.
But the Hawks locked into the game and posed a big threat for Lewiston.
There is a good balance of all the strengths of the Hawks team. While some players are better at play-reading, others may also be good at endurance. This allowed the Hawks to be able to adapt to almost any playing situation and a wide range of other teams.
While traveling can allow some obstacles to arise, the team was able to overcome all obstacles and focus on the first game of the season.
Key plays were executed to allow the team to upgrade their skill level and quickly get the ball to their side of the court. Minimal practice time was given before this game, but the Hawks were still able to play this game like they had been practicing together for the whole year.
A few mistakes were made in the fourth quarter allowing the Bengals to creep the score up closer to the Hawks. But the game ended with the Hawks on top by two points.
