VERIBEST, TX -- The Veribest Lady Falcons knew they could make a playoff run during their unprecedented offseason workouts, but their cinderella run to their first-ever regional tournament wasn’t foreseen.
“This game, it’s a crazy game,” said first year head coach Jim Eubank. “You never know when you’re gonna get on a roll, when things are gonna start falling your way. I’ve been doing this long enough, I’ve always said to be a good playoff team, you not only have to be good, you have to have a little luck along the way. I think we’ve had both. I think we’re a good ball club, but we’ve had some things fall our way.”
Eubank saw the Veribest girls while coaching at Water Valley last year. He knew there was a good group.
“I saw these girls all through district and I knew there was a really good nucleus of kids,” Eubank said. “But you never know, going into a new situation, how they’re gonna buy in and how they’re gonna react to new terminology. It’s totally different in the sense that I’m not a big set play coach. They’ve been used to that in the past.”
So, the Lady Falcons continued to make their own luck with a 34-29 win over no. 25-ranked Blackwell on Monday. Making their own luck that night involved the whole team like they have done all year, not just one or two players. Eubank feels that’s a microcosm for Veribest’s season.
“We’ve got kids that are capable of shooting the ball, it’s just a matter of when they’re gonna have that light come on and that little streak happen,” Eubank said. “The fact that we do have those is a blessing and it’s really hard to focus on one individual.”
But that win over Blackwell nearly didn’t happen. Veribest trailed by five points late in the third quarter. A pair of three-pointers from sophomore Chloe Herrera put Veribest on top and they didn’t look back.
“Teams tend to get complacent when you’re not scoring,” Eubank said. “In the case of Chloe, she hits two back to back, boom boom. It completely altered the game. The rest was history for that night.”
Heading into their first regional tournament with three top 25 teams staring them down, the Lady Falcons will rely on their experience from playing and competing with tough teams like 2A no. 7 San Saba, Ballinger and Sonora. Eubank feels that schedule has prepared the Lady Falcons for their regional tournament debut.
“You have to play those teams in order to put yourself in a position to compete in our district,” Eubank said.
Their first-ever regional semifinal will be a rematch with no.9-ranked Hermleigh, who beat Veribest in the Lady Falcons third game of the year. But, Veribest team in that game was trying to find their rhythm after a regional quarterfinal run in volleyball. The team getting set to take the court at Abilene Christian University is a different team than the one that fell 60-35.
“We are definitely better,” Eubank said. “Literally, I think we had four practices when we played them. Our kids were not only getting used to me, but they were getting used to the terminology and the changes we were trying to do. I believe we’re considerably better. We’ll have an opportunity Friday night to show that.”
Veribest will take on Hermleigh at Abilene Christian University at 8:30 p.m. on Friday.
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