DAHLONEGA – Georgia's motto is “Attack the Day," the Atlanta Falcons' is “Rise Up," and the Lumpkin County girls basketball team has adopted “The Great 8.”
It’s a common practice in team building – teams develop a motto and market the heck out of it.
“I knew that we needed a season-long motto,” Lumpkin coach David Dowse said. “I felt it probably needed to revolve around the obvious fact. We had so few players – eight at the time. It (Great 8) just kind of stuck.”
Regardless of the motto, the Lady Indians are playing like a team with depth – although they only dress seven players. Senior Raven Chester has been out with a knee injury since June.
Led by senior guard MacKenzie Pulley (16.4 ppg) and sophomore guard Isabel Davenport (15.0 ppg), the Lady Indians are shooting 69-percent from the field and almost 40-percent from behind the 3-point arc. On the defensive end of the court, along with Pulley and Davenport, Clara White, McKenzie Caldwell and Ashlynn Wistoski are taking care business. Lumpkin has held its opponents to a shooting average of 37 percent.
"MacKenzie and Isabel both understand that we need them to score," Dowse said. "We have some kids that can score, but for us to really be clicking, they’ve got to score for us. Everybody is accepting of their roles. They’ve bought into the fact that this is a team. If we’ve got to take somebody out of the game defensively, I say Clara go take it and I don't worry about it anymore. Ashlynn does a lot of dirty work, MaKenzie Caldwell with her defense and athleticism and Madisyn (Echols) and Ainslee (Gilreath) off the bench. This team not only believes they can win, they expect to win.”
The Lady Indians (17-5, 6-4) believed enough on Tuesday when they rallied from seven points down to beat Class 3A’s No. 6-ranked team and Region 7-3A leader – Greater Atlanta Christian.
“We knew we could beat them, but I don’t really feel like other people thought we could,” Pulley said. “Even after we played them (close) the first time, I think they thought it was a fluke. To beat them at their place for the first time since they’ve been in our region was really big.”
But, the logistics of running a practice with seven players has forced Dowse to dig in his creative locker. He’s called on the 8th-grade boys' team, the JV boys team, assistant coaches and even cones and chairs. Since October, the Lady Indians have only practiced live three times – scrimmaging five-on-five.
“We literally take cones, chairs and assistant coaches and talk through a lot of what we’re going to do on game day," Dowse said. "To me, that’s the most amazing piece of it. They have developed a basketball IQ to the point where now, I can talk them through a situation. I can talk them through what I think they’re going to see in a game and it’ll transfer to the actual game. I think there are some higher levels of basketball out there where that wouldn’t be possible.”
Whatever Dowse and his staff are doing has been working. They’ve won 17 of 22 games and are in a good position to finish as the No. 2 seed for next month’s Region 7-3A tournament. If they knock off Dawson County (15-7, 6-3) Friday and North Hall (14-5, 6-4) Tuesday, they’ll have a shot at the No. 2 seed.
“I think we can definitely win,” White said about the rest of the schedule. “If we just keep it up and play as we did against GAC, I think we can go far in the tournament.”
As for Dowse, he says staying healthy and improving on the boards are the biggest keys to the remainder of the season.
"This time of the year staying healthy is difficult – everybody has the sniffles," he said. "We are doing the best we can to stay as healthy as we can. But, we’ve got to rebound the basketball better. If there’s a weakness, we’ve got to be better rebounding the basketball - especially at the offensive end. We’ve also got to continue to perform from the free throw line. In crunch time, we’ve got to be able to hit free throws and play defense."
