Faith Academy girls hoops make strides during summer league

CAPTION: The 2025 Faith Academy of Marble Falls girls summer league team includes Madison Winsborough (left), Liv Kraenzel, Layla Terrell, Natalie Weems, Lilly Koziel, Jasmine Young, Selby Sanchez, Cuyleigh Zimmerman and Megan Burrows. Courtesy photo

When Harvey Vaughn became the head coach of the Faith Academy of Marble Falls girls basketball program last summer, he had one giant item on his to-do list.

Lessen the learning curve for his team that featured a lot of underclassmen.

The Lady Flames learned some hard lessons the hard way during the pre-district campaign that began in November. At that time, the squad featured underclassmen while waiting for the upperclassmen to finish their commitment to volleyball. The 2024 Lady Flames’ volleyball season ended on the final weekend of the season – at the state tournament.

So when the veterans joined the basketball program, they roughly had three weeks to play before taking a five-day Christmas break and returning to the court to get familiar with one another.

And though the Lady Flames won only eight games last season, the victories came when it counted the most. Faith won four games in District 4-3A of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools to advance to the playoffs. They beat Huntsville Alpha Omega Academy on the road 57-37 before losing to district rival and eventual state champion Waco Live Oak 58-48 in the regional final.

That’s why Vaughn wanted his Lady Flames to play in a summer basketball league that included Blanco, Dripping Springs, Fischer Canyon Lake and Marble Falls. They played for six weeks and each squad competed in three games per week with 18-minute halves with a running clock where the players officiated themselves.

“I liked the format,” Vaughn said. “There was very little coaching. They had to play and figure it out and run the offense and defense by themselves.”

That is especially important considering he is projecting to have one senior, Natalie Weems, two juniors, six sophomores and a freshman this season.

“We never talked about winning or losing,” Vaughn said. “We were 100 percent focused every single day on working and having to get better. They bought into it. They didn’t mind. They’re very tough, competitive kids.”

While the coach could see his players getting in the necessary work and the benefits from it, the program is still needing more leaders to emerge now that Hadley Shipley, the only senior on the squad a year ago, graduated.

“We’re still working on that because we’re so young,” he said. “They had Hadley, and I think they learned a lot from her last year. That was one of the more important things. It was more leading by example. That’s one thing about Hadley; she did everything she could do to win. She showed up to practice every day ready to work. She wanted to get better, she worked every day to improve, she was super coachable and super competitive.”

Needless to say, Vaughn is looking forward to the 2025-26 season.

“They made major improvement,” he said. “They started to get enough experience against good players. They’re starting to figure things out. They want to win. I think they’ll be much improved.”