Holmes County, Fla. -
On Sunday, both the Ponce de Leon and Holmes County girls hoops teams left for state. The two will face each other in the State Semi-Finals in Lakeland.
The Lady Pirates are 27-2 on the year, and state championships are no stranger to the squad, who has captured titles both in 1989 and in 2000. They most recently made the trip to Lakeland in 2007. Head Coach Tim Alford is in his 17th year coaching at PDL, and while he's been to Lakeland many times, it's a new experience for his players, and one they shouldn't take lightly.
"It's a lot of hard work that goes into making this happen, so enjoy it- but try not to get caught up in the fact that it's a vacation," he says. "It's still trying to do our best, and reap rewards of our sacrifices through the year."
Holmes County on the other team, has ridden the underdog train, battling injuries all season, and having beaten teams with much better records throughout Regionals. Head Coach Devon Miles hoping that consistency will right through to Lakeland, as he's never beaten Ponce de Leon in his five years as head coach at Holmes County, and has nothing but respect for the program.
"They got a great basketball program. If you want to get as good as the best program, you go watch them and model what they're doing," he said Sunday before the bus pulled out. "That's what we're trying to do here. We're glad to be going. We're glad we got this far, probably surprised a lot of people, probably proved a lot of people wrong. That's what we're going to keep trying to do."
Holmes County and Ponce de Leon have played each other twice this year, with PDL winning both match-ups. But despite that statistic, both squads know anything can happen come Tuesday morning.
"They've seen us play, we've seen them play. It should be a good game," says Kate Carroll, PDL's point guard. "They've got a good team over there and they like to run. They go hard for 32 minutes."
"We've never had a victory over their Varsity, so it's going to be fun going to a different area to play them and get outside of Holmes County," says Coach Miles. "I think it'll give us a better shot."
The school's are just 18 miles apart from each other in Holmes County, and Coach Alford says to play a team he knows so well, is a very different situation.
"I talk to Coach Miles on a regular basis by cell phone," he says. "I know his kids by name. I've seen them two or three times a year we play, out at different games so, it's going to be different. I'll know the name of every kid over there, so it'll be different."
"Everything that we've been through it's a really big surprise with injuries and stuff," says Holmes County sophomore Cierra Davis.
Mikayla Moore agreed: "It seems like everything's been against us with all of our injuries and people being sick, but we just have to overcome everything. We're proving everybody wrong."
Holmes County and Ponce de Leon face off on Tuesday morning at 11:30 Eastern.
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