The Lady Greyhounds will accelerate towards their shot at repeating as region champions this week. With a win in Wednesday’s semifinals, they’ll advance to Friday’s girls tournament championship. But to do so, Jones County won’t just be facing opponents but also the dislike of an entire county.
The Lady Hounds’ region is comprised of nine other teams, all from Henry County. That means that JCHS has a goal in this week’s region tournament, to take something that nine other teams from one county desire — a region title.
But in doing so, Jones County (20-5) will be playing every bit of the role of a heel in a pro wrestling match, that of the team that most fans in attendance want to see lose.
It’s a scenario that Lady Greyhounds head coach Takeo Gray says that he and the Lady Greyhounds saw play out in front of their own eyes in last year’s region tournament. On the way to being region champions, Jones County encountered fans of other Henry County schools cheering against them, even if they were not fans of teams even playing at the time.
“Last year, you looked out, and it was a bunch of Henry County fans from various schools, and I don’t think any of them were cheering for us,” Gray said. “Each of the schools are against us. They all kind of play the same defense, so it’s almost like a coalition among each other, like, ‘Even if we can’t win, we don’t want Jones County to.’
It’s for that reason that the Lady Greyhounds are focused not so much on an opponent but the way in which the game begins. In December’s 51-46 loss at Stockbridge, Jones County managed nine firstquarter points.
“I feel like anybody we play, we match up well against them. If we don’t start out well like we do at home, it makes a big difference,” Gray said. “We don’t want to give their crowd a chance to get into it. We want to control things.”
