Panthers look to take control in second half of play

The Colleyville Heritage boys basketball team wrapped up the first half of district competition with a 4-2 mark, and coach Stephen Hamrick said his team is in a good position as it gets set to start up the second half of 7-6A play.

The Panthers played Trinity on Tuesday night after the press deadline and will square off with Haltom at 8 p.m. on Feb. 3 at Thomas Coliseum in Haltom City after enjoying a bye on Friday.

“We are going to go on the road, and they have a good group of big and athletic players,” Hamrick said. “They are capable of beating anyone, just because of their athleticism. They have a young man in (Andrew Stafford) who's averaging 15 or 16 points per game, who is very good at scoring around the basket, so we are going to have to pay close attention to him.

“They also have some nice wing players on the perimeter, so it will be a tough game for us, especially, being on the road.”

The Panthers lost to Richland by a score of 61-46 last Friday night, and Hamrick said his team struggled in a couple of areas against the Rebels.

“Richland did a marvelous job of kind of taking us out of things that we wanted to do defensively and offensively,” Hamrick said. “They kind of made us do some things that we don't necessarily want to do during the course of a game in terms of going away from some of our strengths.

“They did a good job of that, and it led to a hard fought win for them on the road, and we're just going to have to regroup and get stronger and better.”

With a 4-2 mark after the first half of district competition, Hamrick said he is pretty pleased with how his team is positioned as the second half gets underway.

“It's good,” Hamrick said. “It's a good league. It's very competitive, and there is a lot of parity in this league. I think that anybody is capable of beating anyone throughout the course of the district season, so I would much rather be here than with the record reversed, but we are approaching this second half like our record is 0-0.”

Hamrick said that his team has looked good throughout the first half of district in a couple of areas.

“We have done a really good job on our team defense,” Hamrick said. “The game against Richland is the only district game this season where we have allowed anybody to score 50 or more points. We've done a great job defensively, and we've done a great job of keeping the tempo where we want it.

“People are not shooting a great field goal percentage against us, and that has allowed us to be in every single game. With the tempo as kind of a strength, our turnover rate has been low. That has helped us to do well so far.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2015 at 4:16 PM with the headline "Panthers look to take control in second half of play."