Looking around the gymnasium at Mount Vernon Nazarene, Tri-Cities Christian Academy coach girls basketball coach Jeff Hawkins could not help but reflect on the path his team took to get to a NCSAA national championship.
Earlier in the week, in a game for seeding, the Lady Eagles fell by three points in double overtime. Miraculously, they had a chance to tie the game at the buzzer despite having only three players on the court.
“The whole place just started gathering around our court,” Hawkins said. “It was like five deep, people couldn’t believe that we were still in the game. And it was just a microcosm of our entire season.”
It was a season of the improbable for Tri-Cities Christian, which responded to a 1-6 start by going 16-3 after Dec. 1. The club also saw its lone senior, Grace Williams, suffer a torn meniscus with two weeks left in the regular season.
The Lady Eagles kept fighting.
Tri-Cities Christian bounced back from the double-overtime defeat with a semifinal victory, allowing the six-person roster to play its third game in three days.
In the title game, Faith Greene dislocated a finger. The injury left Hawkins unsure if he could play his leading scorer. However, she returned to lead the Lady Eagles’ charge to the Division 4 national championship.
“After about two trips down the floor, she takes the tape off of her finger and throws it over to me,” Hawkins said. “That shows how tough she is. She didn’t even want the tape on, she just wanted to go play ball.”
Greene was not the only standout performer for the Lady Eagles. She was joined by teammates Michaela Dixon and Savannah Barb on the all-tournament team.
“I wish we could give all six girls awards,” Hawkins said. “Because all six deserved it. It was really cool to see those three recognized on the all-tournament team. They definitely deserved it, not only with points scored, but overall attitude and effort.”
With the Lady Eagles’ early-season struggles, it would have been easy to cleanse the idea of any team or individual accolades from being realistic possibilities. But Tri-Cities Christian remained focused on one of the core principles of the program: selfless basketball.
“They never cared who scored,” Hawkins said. “They never cared who got the headline. All they cared about was playing for one another.
“There’s something about playing for something bigger than yourself, and we believe that God is going to reward that.”
When instilling these values into the program, Hawkins credits his two assistants — Kerry Dixon and the head coach’s daughter, Daphne Hawkins — for playing integral roles in seeing them come to fruition. He added that it was special to accomplish the things the Lady Eagles did this season with his daughter on the bench.
Most of the roster returns for Tri-Cities Christian, setting up 2025 to be another special season. But Hawkins hopes the magic of this year’s campaign will not be soon forgotten.
“(It was) one of the most memorable seasons I’ve ever had as a coach,” Hawkins said.
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