Confidence prevails at Bootheel Conference Tournament

The Portageville eight grade girls basketball team won the Bootheel Conference League championship last Friday night.

At the 2014 Girls Junior High Bootheel Conference Tournament in Senath-Hornersville, the hosts earned spots in both seventh and eighth grade tournament finals. The seventh grade earned a championship trophy after a hard-fought battle, while the eighth grade were overpowered by the number four seed.

Senath-Hornersville's eighth grade side put themselves in position to bring home a first place trophy of their own, but Portageville spoiled those plans.

"We didn't feel like we were underdogs in the tournament," Bulldogs head coach Kellye Fowler said after the game. "Everybody else might have felt like it, but we felt like we could at least compete with everyone else in the tournament. They had lots of confidence coming in."

The confidence showed on the court. In a powerful performance, the fourth place seed established themselves early on by taking the lead and never letting it go. The Lady Lions fought back from a 12 point deficit in the fourth quarter, but Portageville's strength helped them keep their lead until the final buzzer.

A big factor in Portageville's victory appeared to be the strength they had over the competition. Fowler said it's a direct result of work the girls put in over the summer.

"They just worked super hard," Fowler said. "We started a seventh and eighth grade lifting program in the summer last year, and those six girls were there every day."

It helps to have a group of girls that wants to put in the type of work that wins trophies.

"They want to lift," Fowler said. "They were asking me at the beginning of the season, 'Can we dead lift today? Can we squad today?' They just worked hard. They're physical, and they won't let people push them around that's for sure."

Fowler says the win culminates a huge turnaround for the team, who struggled to win a single game last season. Now, they'll join Fowler's high school program with a conference tile under their belts.

"I told them to remember the feeling and how hard they worked," Fowler said. "This will be the first group I've coached from seventh grade up. They were my first group last year, so It's exciting to think we'll have them, especially how hard they work...It's been a long time since Portageville has won a conference tournament in girls basketball, so junior high or not, it's awfully exciting."

With the teams Wilkins and Fowler have been working to build, it will be very interesting to see how Portageville and Senath-Hornersville stack up at the high school level.