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Young Mustangs Seek To Improve After 2nd Loss

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By GREGG BECNEL Tribune correspondent

Published: December 1, 2007

TAMPA - After starting the season with three wins, including one against district foe St. Petersburg, the Mitchell girls basketball team dropped its second straight game Thursday, losing 51-31 at Sickles.

The Mustangs (3-2, 1-2 Class 6A-District 7) knew they couldn't match Sickles' high-scoring offense basket for basket, so they went in with a strategy to negate the Gryphons' athleticism.

"The game plan was we were going to slow it down a little bit in the beginning," Mustangs coach Stephanie Koslin said.

"And we did a pretty good job of doing that and sticking with it."

Mitchell slugged its way to a 7-5 lead and limited Sickles to just one field goal in the first quarter. And despite the Mustangs making only one field goal in the second, they continued to control the pace and went into intermission down 17-10.

"We stuck with it and were only down seven at the half," Koslin said.

Things changed quickly, however, in the third quarter, as Sickles' half-court trap forced Mitchell to abandon its game plan as the Mustangs' deficit grew.

"In the second half, we had too many turnovers and got too far behind that we couldn't slow it down anymore," Koslin said. "So we had to run our offense and we were having a hard time executing."

Mitchell was outscored 22-5 in the third quarter and went into the fourth down 39-15.

Senior guard Latoya Hillmon, Mitchell's leading scorer, had a team-high 10 points.

"She works hard and is doing a good job," Koslin said. "She hustles for us, she rebounds, she's our energizer bunny.

"She does it all. We look for her, and the rest of the team knows that."

The Mustangs, who won the district last season with a veteran team led by former standout guard Kristi Hopper, start three sophomores (Lashe Kirkland, Latrel Kirkland and Andrea Kosmalski), a junior (Hanna Bernard) and a senior (Hillmon).

Despite Mitchell's youth, Koslin said she believes the Mustangs can be successful this season.

"We're going to get better," she said. "We have a lot of work to do, but we're going to improve. Thursday was just one game, so we have something to build on.

"We have things we need to work on as a team, so we're just going to practice hard and work on the things we've being doing wrong."

The biggest question for Koslin, who is seven months pregnant, is whether she will be on the bench or in the hospital when the district tournament begins the final week of January.

"It was obviously not planned, so we did a bad job with that," Koslin said of her pregnancy.

She said Feb. 5 is her due date, and with districts in late January, "I'm going to make it."

Correspondent Gregg Becnel can be reached at gbecnel@

pop.tampatrib.com.

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