GASTON – Kyle Mealy is running his team through a fast-paced drill, one that will test his players’ physical fitness level. As the Wes-Del girls basketball coach conducts this drill during a recent practice, he tells his players it’s designed to help them be better in the fourth quarter. As he sees it, the fourth quarter is crucial to the next step his team needs to take.
Mealy and the Warriors have won four games this season, with the first victory breaking a 76-game losing streak that had been in place since December 2010. After defeating Anderson Prep on Dec. 8, the next win didn’t take long after, as Wes-Del recorded a victory against Fall Creek Academy on Dec. 13.
But each of those first two wins came by at least 30 points, and each of the first four victories has been by at least 17 points.
For their next step, the Warriors want to win a close game, a back-and-forth contest that requires fourth-quarter heroics. The last time Wes-Del won a game by a single-digit margin was a 54-52 victory against Eastbrook on Jan. 28, 2010.
Senior Haleigh Greer, speaking after the first two wins but before the two most recent, said things have been more energized at practice since breaking the losing streak, but the Warriors have a newfound confidence and want more victories. She too covets a tight win in an evenly-matched game.
“That will make us even more energetic,” Greer said.
Greer had never experienced a win in her high school career until the Anderson Prep game broke the streak. As she talks about it, she looks back on the ‘blood, sweat and tears,’ that went into building up to that day.
She talks of summer workouts each year and all the time spent in the gym as a team building bonds. Winter breaks were sacrificed to practice almost every day, and that all seemed to come to a crescendo with the 52-22 win against the Jets.
“It was amazing,” Greer said. “I’ve been waiting for that moment since my freshman year. It felt nice that I went through all that work and we finally got it as a team.”
Junior Abbie Rooker remembers looking up at the scoreboard that night, seeing her team’s early lead and developing a confidence that she and her teammates could break the streak. Rooker’s memory then jumps to the end of the game, when she looked over at her teammates and saw smiles all around.
Greer said she’s always had a healthy optimism that day was coming. But when this season began, she sensed something was different.
Mealy, who is an assistant principal at Wes-Del, is in his second season coaching the team. Greer said one source of optimism came from building on the things Mealy had implemented in his first season. And after focusing heavily on defense last year, she said the Warriors have been able to mix in more work on offense this year.
The offensive improvement has been tangible. The Warriors have scored at least 30 points in 11 of their first 12 games this season. Last season, Wes-Del scored 30 points for the first time in its 12th game of the year.
“Now we’re just building up and building up,” Greer said.
The Warriors also have several new players this season that have been able to help the cause. Some are transfers or freshmen, and two senior volleyball players, Mariah Berry and Mackenzie Whitehead, elected to join the squad this year after their volleyball team completed its state title run.
Berry and Whitehead provide some valuable height in the post, but Greer they are also an asset to the team culture. They are accustomed to winning and are able to impart that mentality onto their teammates.
The two new players also allow the Warriors to better utilize the 5-foot-10 Rooker. Despite her height, Rooker can also play guard, and the addition of Berry and Whitehead allows Rooker to showcase her ability to play in the backcourt.
“I like that a lot,” Rooker said. “Because I used to be the tallest player on the team, so I was constantly, always post. And I like coming out and having a variety.”
Rooker shared Greer’s view that something seemed different this year when the season began, that she and her teammates were closer to that elusive win than they had been in the past.
The win-loss record is one indicator that the 2014-15 Warriors are better than those previous teams that didn’t win a game. But Rooker said that, outside of wins and losses, their improvement is seen in their attention to detail in summer workouts paying off.
“We really needed to work on the little things,” Rooker said. “Not just the big picture of ‘We need to win.’ We needed to work on little ballhandling skills, and defensive stance and things like that, not the big things. And as we mastered the little things, then it came together.”
But that improvement means more work for Mealy. Scouting reports had never been part of the Warrior coaching staff’s duties in recent years. But now that they can enter games with the confidence that they have a chance to win, and that it might be a close game, they seem more necessary. Mealy has also added in some film study of his team’s own play. Preparing all of that material takes time.
“It’s a good problem,” Mealy said. “It does kind of irritate my wife, I think, a little bit. Because it causes me to work a little bit more and takes time away. But she’s very supportive. So, yeah, the girls are ready for a lot of new things.”
Contact prep sports reporter Sam Wilson at (765) 213-5807. Follow him on Twitter @SamWilsonTSP.