WS Chronicle

The Mary Garber Holiday Tip-Off Classic is to girl’s basketball as the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic is to boys basketball in the Triad area.  Walking away with the championships this year were the Lady Titans of West Forsyth and the Lady Furies of Forsyth Country Day.

The tournament was split into two different brackets, the Pepsi bracket and the Champion bracket.  West Forsyth was seeded No. 1 in the Pepsi bracket coming into the tournament and were looking to avenge their loss in the championship game last year to the Reagan Raiders.

The Titans had one mission coming into the tournament, according to head coach Brittany Cox, and that was to take it one game at a time and hopefully come away with the title.  She felt if they played the best they could every game they had a good chance of winning it all.

“I think a lot of people on the outside had a lot of expectations because we were chosen as the No. 1 seed going into it,” Cox said.  “We did not want to lose focus worried about what people expected us to be; we were more focused on what we can be and just give our best effort.”

“I did believe we had the best team going into the tournament but we hadn’t earned anything yet.  We just tried to earn what we got one step at a time.”

The Titans dominated their opponents during the tournament winning by at least 22 points in each game.  They also accomplished one of their goals by defeating the same Reagan team that defeated them in last year’s championship.  Constant improvement was another goal Cox wanted to achieve as well.

“I thought that there was improvement from preseason with the things our coaching staff wanted to improve on and we did those things game by game,” Cox continued.

Forsyth Country Day was the second seed in the Champion Bracket.  They were led by first year head coach Monty Gray, who says he didn’t expect to win it all but was not surprised based on the effort his girls have been giving during pre-season workouts.

“To be honest, no, I didn’t expect us to win but with all of the hard work the ladies have been doing I was not shocked,” said Gray.  “We just took it one game at a time and the ladies really have bought in to my coaching style and it showed on the court.”

Gray credits his early success to the dedication of his coaching staff.  He says his team has put in the work during the pre-season workouts which has put them in a position to be successful on the court.

Ironically, Forsyth Country Day faced off against Gray’s former team Reynolds in the championship game.  He says it was sort of odd playing against his former team because of the time he spent at the school.

“It was kind of bittersweet playing against them, honestly,” Gray continued.  “I have great memories from the school and that was the first girl’s team I have ever coached. 

Gray feels as though winning the Champion bracket was a great start to the season.  He has a history of turning around teams in a very short amount of time.  He hopes this victory will bring more eyes to his school in hopes of having more athletes join his program in the future.

Cox and the Titans had four players voted onto the All-Tournament team along with co-MVPs, Destiny Griffin and Skyler Curran.  According to Cox, the entire team contributed to winning the tournament.  She feels this is great momentum to start the season but the season is long and they still have things to improve upon going forward.

“I try to focus on taking it one day at a time with these girls and we try to just focus on each opponent,” said Cox.  “In the locker room we talk a lot about the only opponent that can beat us is us because we have a lot of talent but can’t take it for granted.  We have a great group and want to continue to grow.”