By TYLER HENRY
Little Apple Post contributor
As we head into the final month of the regular season, the Rock Creek girls’ basketball team will look to keep the good times rolling, entering the home stretch ranked as the #10 team in Class 4A, with an overall record of 11-3.
Like many great teams at all levels across all sports, the Lady Mustangs have lived by a simple principle this season; It doesn’t matter how you win, what matters, is that you win.
“Our perseverance and ability to win in a number of different ways have been the best thing that I’ve seen from this team this season,” Rock Creek head coach Adam Plummer said. “We’ve won in the low 30s, we’ve won in the 50s and 60s, we’ve won in man, we’ve won in the zone and we’ve won with different styles offensively. In 20 years I’ve never experienced anything quite like this where what we’re doing is inconsistent but the winning is consistent.”
That mantra has held true all season as the Lady Mustangs have wins where they’ve scored as few as 36 and as many as 65, while also taking victories in games where they held their opponents to as little as 19, and while surrendering as much as 53.
Overall, this is a Rock Creek team that lacks a true superstar, but in many ways, that makes them more difficult to guard, as the points can come from anywhere on any given night.
“We haven’t had many surprises individually,” Plummer said. “We don’t have one star that we play around. It’s a bunch of kids who like each other, who get along, and who play for each other on the court.”
Overall, the Lady Mustangs’ ability to grit through anything thrown their way and come out on top more often than not has given this team an air of confidence about them that will serve them well down the stretch.
“I think having to find so many different ways to win has given this team more confidence,” he said. “I’ve had that conversation with them, they have an expectation to win no matter how they’re playing individually. It allows us to be flexible on both sides of the ball and we keep fighting until we end up on the right side of the scoreboard.”
While there are many positives to take away from Rock Creek’s play through the first half of the season, the Lady Mustangs remain committed to finding ways to narrow the margins between good and great, specifically in their post-play.
“We still want to improve our ability to score in the paint consistently,” Plummer said. “That’s been a hallmark of what we’ve done for the last four years but we haven’t been consistent about getting those high percentage shots this year.”
With an absolutely loaded 4A sub-state looming on the horizon, Rock Creek hopes to avoid their mistakes of the past and lock up a strong position in the upcoming sub-state bracket.
“We know we have to keep winning because home court and seeding make a big difference in 4A,” he said. “Last year we slipped up and got moved to the three-seed which put McPherson in our sub-state. We also know that February is a time where some teams trend up and others trend down, we need to be playing our best basketball this month so we can be at our best when sub-state rolls around.”
Rock Creek will return to the hardwood on Friday, February 3rd when the Lady Mustangs welcome in the Falcons of Riley County.
For continuing coverage of Rock Creek hoops all season long, stay tuned to the Little Apple Post.