Murphy – With just two players back who played major minutes on last year’s state championship team, Murphy girls basketball coach Ray Gutierrez had two goals with the early portion of the season. He wanted to get some of his more inexperienced players quality minutes, and play good teams to show them what it will take to keep Murphy’s tradition going.
While the Lady Bulldogs got that experience in the Nov. 23 season opener, it may take a few games until the results show. Murphy fell to Buncombe County 4A school A.C. Reynolds, 50-36.
“It’s disappointing to lose, but at the same time it was a good test for us,” Gutierrez said. “We saw something in them that we’ll see in the playoffs in that they have length and some pretty good guards around that length.”
The Lady Rockets controlled the game, though the Lady Bulldogs cut it to a one-possession contest in the fourth quarter before running out of gas. Murphy struggled to score throughout the night, hitting just 22 percent of its shots from the field and four of 21 3-pointers. Adding to its offensive troubles, Murphy did not have a single fast-break point.
“When you think of Murphy basketball, you think about somebody who’s going to get after you for four quarters, full court,” Gutierrez said.
“With our personnel, there’s no reason to think we can’t do that again this year.”
After playing A.C. Reynolds to start the season, the Lady Bulldogs have a few more challenging games before getting into the thick of Smoky Mountain Conference play. They’ll face Copper Basin (Tenn.) this Friday before meeting last year’s Georgia High School Association 2A runner-up Fannin County the next day.
The following week, Murphy will face Enka, one of the top 3A teams in western North Carolina last year, and Lumpkin County, which should be one of Georgia’s top 3A teams.
Besides seniors Torin Rogers and Amber Martin, Murphy will be relying on players who head into this season with little varsity experience outside of garbage time. It’s a team being thrown into the fire of tough early season games and what should be a challenging conference slate, but Gutierrez hopes it will pay off when it matters most.
“The cupboard’s not bare,” Gutierrez said. “We got a lot of good kids. We just have to keep chipping away until hopefully we peak at the right time.”