With AAA Region VI play tipping off next week, the two-time defending region champion Lady Red Foxes have lost five of their last six games. First year head coach Tammy Mack Gibson will try to find a way to get the team turned around before it meets Lakewood next Friday in Sumter.
Hartsville, which returns just five players from last year’s team that went unbeaten on the way to winning the region title and then advanced to the Lower State Championship Game before losing to Myrtle Beach, started off the season with five straight wins. Since them, it’s been mostly downhill.
The Lady Red Foxes can take heart, however, in the fact that last year’s region championship team, led by Hall of Fame coach Pat Hewitt and S.C. 3A Girls Player of the Year Jasmine Phillips, held a similar 6-5 record before entering region play last season. Hartsville, which has won 20 consecutive region games, will play non-region rival Lamar at home Monday in its final game before region action begins Friday.
Gibson, a former Lady Red Fox player under Hewitt, will rely on her five seven upperclassmen for leadership on the court. Senior guards Asia Pooler and Denyetta Rogers will handle to ball-handling chores, along with sophomore Brittany Wheeler.
The post positions will be held down by seniors Shannon Ashe and Monica Gray, as well as sophomores Kelah Brown and Mary Godfrey.
In the Lady Red Foxes’ first five wins of the season, the team seemed in sync playing a modestly up-tempo style and scoring at least 50 points in each game. Since then, Hartsville has had problems at the offensive end, breaking the 50-point mark in only two of six games.
The Lady Red Foxes have shown they posses the speed and height to be competitive. Crestwood and Marlboro County have both started the season strong and will likely provide the strongest challenges to Hartsville for the regio
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