By Maggie Beth Atha & Anna Cantrell
Throughout the spring, many teams compete twice a week in the Area’s basketball league. The games start following Thanksgiving and continue until the beginning of February. Both of Darlington’s Middle School teams finished the season with what all teams really want – an Area Championship trophy.
On Feb. 6, the boys’ and girls’ teams loaded buses and headed to Rockmart Middle School to compete in the last round of the Area Tournament. The girls, who walked into the championship game 16-0, were matched up with the Lady Indians of Armuchee Middle School. The boys, who were 13-3, were matched with the Yellow Jackets of Rockmart Middle School.
Our girls worked hard all summer, practices were extremely hard during the pre-season, and we never let up during the regular season. As eighth-graders, we just kept preaching to the girls that if we continued to work hard as a team that it would pay off, and it did with a final score of 34-23 against Armuchee.
It was really important to keep all our girls on the same page and make everyone realize that no one on the team was more important than another. Our saying for the year was 100%, 100% of the time, and that had a lot to do with the success we had over the duration of the season. Our going 17-0 and being the only undefeated Middle School team beyond the parameter of our Area was not just luck. It was the combination of hard work, intensity and heart.
The boys also worked together at the end of the season to bring home a 48-41 win against Rockmart. Going into the tournament, they were 10-4, but they did what they had to do to win.
“We had a good regular season, but still had a lot of improvements to make in order to win it all,” said boys’ coach Kevin Ivester. “We changed some minute things around in our offense to try and take advantage of the weaknesses of other teams we were matched up with. We played our best ball of the season in the tournament when it all really mattered.”
Having both teams succeed brought our whole Middle School community closer together.
