Faith Academy girls basketball hosts tourney
CAPTION: The Faith Academy Lady Flames return to the court after going 3-1 at the Austin Veritas Tournament. The team includes Graylee Bergman (front row, left), Alyana Reyes, Jasmine Young, Lilly Koziel; Ashlyn Rishavy (second row, left), Madison Winsborough, Megan Burrows, Olivia Kraenzel, Layla Terrell, Selby Sanchez, Cuyleigh Zimmerman; assistant coach Steve Hatch (back row, middle) and head coach Harvey Vaughn. Courtesy photo
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls girls basketball team hosts its own tournament Friday and Saturday, Dec. 12-13, at The Fire Pit.
The Lady Flames (5-4) face Austin Waldorf at 1:30 p.m. and Fredericksburg Heritage at 4:30 p.m. both on Friday and Austin Regents at 3 p.m. and Cherokee at 6 p.m both on Saturday.
“Regents will be the strongest team in the field,” Faith head coach Harvey Vaughn said. “We already played them the first game of the year (a 55-24 loss), so I’m looking to see what kind of progress we’ve made since then, and see if we can have a very competitive game with them.”
Faith will take the court for the first time since beating Leander Founders Classical 51-40 Nov. 25 and has been practicing for more than a week.
“We’ve spent a lot of time working on fundamental basics of what we’re trying to do as far as our offense, our defense, our fast break, our press break,” Vaughn said. “We have spent the last four days really going hardcore on our new press and as well as breaking that press.”
These practices have especially benefited reserves who haven’t gotten much playing time during the season.
“They have a better understanding of what they need to be doing, so that they can play more, not only in games but be more competitive in practices, which obviously leads to more playing time, the coach said. “So we spend a lot of time cross-training girls in the press at different levels, moving guards around in the press break, making sure everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. We have spent an enormous amount of time on that.”
These are the first of two more “tough games” before the Lady Flames break for the Christmas holiday.
They’re hosting McKinney Cornerstone Christian that reached the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools Class 3A state tournament last year, Tuesday, Dec. 16, and Austin Hill Country, a Class 4A state tournament semifinalist, Friday, Dec. 19. Both begin at 6 p.m.
“I tried to build up to the break,” the coach said. “(MCC) has a good coach (Bryson Gresham) who (took) over about three years ago. He’s doing a good job over there. I met him at the state meeting, and he wanted to play us this year. I said, ‘Well, if you’re willing to drive, we’ll certainly schedule it up.’ So we’re looking forward to that. Austin Hill Country will be good. That’ll be a tough game for us.”
Vaughn said the Lady Flames are looking forward to playing real opponents as opposed to facing each other.
“The girls are working hard,” he said. “I think that they’re ready to play. I think we’ve had a little frustration last couple days just going against each other, doing the same thing over and over and over again, and I think they’re ready to do it to somebody else now.”
