LHS boys' basketball team didn't waste work it put in
Jeremy Heath

PHOTOS BY GABE WOLF LHS senior guard Jacob Maceyra is consoled by his brother, Aaron, after Tuesday's game.

Preparation and hard work gets wasted when teams don't finish seasons with as much intensity and pride as they start them.

The Lampasas High School boys' basketball team didn't waste anything.

The Badgers closed out their season Tuesday night with a 53-40 win against Burnet at Bozarth-Fowler Gymnasium. It marked their fourth consecutive win to close the season, giving them 19 wins on the year and tying them for fourth place in District 25-4A with Cedar Park Vista Ridge. They finished 19-12 overall and 7-7 in district play.

After being eliminated from playoff contention by Pflugerville Hendrickson with four games to play, the Badgers had the option of either playing out the string and turning their attention to track season or re-focusing their goals from earning a playoff berth to winning the most games any LHS team has won since the 1999-2000 team went 22-14.

"We talked about it as soon as we were out of the playoffs," said senior Heath Cofield. "We pointed out that we still had our pride to play for. We wanted to go out on top and just play as hard as we could."

Senior Coleton Lucas escorts his mother during halftime of Tuesday's game.

Senior guard Jacob Maceyra said the team's decision to close its season strong changed the way it played down the stretch.

"It makes you play like you have nothing to lose," he said. "You don't hold anything back. It drives you to play harder because you want to leave everything on the court. We wanted to set the standard for next year -- to pull together and set goals for the next team to reach."

Senior guard Clay Tyner said the team's ability to finish strong started during offseason workouts.

"We put our minds to doing something and pulled together and did it," he said. "We really focused on how hard we had worked all preseason with all the drills and all the miles we ran. We wanted all that work to pay off."

For head coach Scott Harrelson, who had watched this group of seniors play the first three years of their high school careers without winning more than eight games, it was about more than a strong down-the-stretch kick.

Jeremy Heath is the Dispatch Record's sports editor. His column appears Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at jheath@lampasas.com.

"It means the world to me," Harrelson said. "Lots of times, I questioned whether or not I was doing things the right way. I questioned whether or not I was doing the things I needed to do to make these kids as good as they can be. The way they finished the season just says, 'Yes.'

"I'm just so proud to even work with such a fine group of young men."

Seniors Cofield, Tyner, Maceyra, Coleton Lucas, Marcus Swatzell, Barry Postell and Marvin Mouroum won't get another opportunity to wear the Blue and White on the court. It shouldn't bother them much, considering they couldn't have made any more of their final opportunity.

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Sports teams at all levels of competition rarely achieve perfection in the win-loss column.

It just takes too great a combination of skill, determination and focus. Finding the right mix of those three factors in any given year is simply an extreme statistical improbability.

That's what makes the LHS freshman girls' basketball team such a special group. For 26 games this season, the unquestionably skilled squad never lost its determination or focus. They finished with 26 wins against zero losses.

To put it in perspective, I'll use some football examples. (And keep in mind, that even at its highest level, a football team does not play more than 19 games.)

If you count private and parochial schools, there were 22 high school state champions last fall. Just seven of those schools finished undefeated. That's less than a third of the schools who brought home a gold ball. We're talking about the best of the best.

Louisiana State University won the national championship in college football -- with two losses.

In pro football, the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s, the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s, the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s and the New England Patriots of our current decade have failed to produce and undefeated season.

If you want to talk basketball, the last NCAA Division I men's team to finish undefeated: the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.

But the Lady Badgers did not lose a game.

It's nearly impossible to overstate the significance of this achievement.

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Speaking of perfection, I've proven myself less than capable of it.

You'd think after about a dozen years in sports journalism, I could decipher a schedule. Tuesday's edition suggests otherwise.

Tuesday's LHS varsity baseball action against Copperas Cove was a scrimmage, as is Saturday's action against Brownwood. The first regular season game is at Copperas Cove on Monday at 6 p.m.

I regret the error and hope it did not cause LHS baseball fans too much confusion.

Also, while I'm in the mood to disclose my faults, in the Feb. 8 edition, I listed senior catcher Coleton Lucas as a junior on the baseball preview page. Sorry Coleton.

I also reported the girls' soccer team's district record as 1-2 heading into Tuesday's game against Copperas Cove. The team was 1-1-1 before Tuesday's 3-0 loss. My most sincere apologies.

Man, I feel like a quarterback walking off the field after throwing his third interception of the game.