Fair Grove Working Hard at Home Tournament

Fair Grove girl’s basketball team placed second in the tournament they hosted, losing in the championship game to the defending class five champions, West Plains.

The team is coached by Jennifer Talbert along with Jeremy Faubion, who described the team’s performance as, “We got wins over Clever and Lebanon, two good teams, and competed well in the championship game. There is always room for improvement, and these early games showed us how we need to improve daily in practice for games in the future.”

The tournament has been running for 42 years, featuring good competition early in the season, Faubion elaborated, “We have a very good tournament, with bigger schools and ranked programs in it every year. It is good to play that type of competition early in the year.”

They will return with experience only graduating one senior, the importance of which is described by Kameron Green (12), “We lost only one senior last year, so we are coming back strong this season. Everyone on the team now has experience in a varsity game environment and we are all ready to start our season off strong and competitive.” Faubion explained, “We return a lot of experienced players who have worked really hard to improve over the summer and the off-season.”

The expectations for what follows the tournament are set high for the Lady Eagles and championship aspirations are not lacking among the team, Faubion said, “Having the success we had last year, and most all of our pieces back, we expect to be competing for our conference and district championships and want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the year.” 

Championship glory doesn’t come without facing down tough competition and for the Lady Eagles that trend won’t be bucked, Faubion said, “We play in the Mid-Lakes, which is one of the toughest conferences in the state when it comes to girl’s basketball. We also play a very tough schedule against very good programs to prepare us for the post-season.”

These challenges aren’t being faced without preparation, Green explained their practices as, “In the practices leading up to the tournament we worked a lot on our defense and being prepared in all aspects of the game. We study our opponents’ game and work hard to understand how they play and what their tendencies are.”

The Lady Eagles will continue to play regular season games until January when District games will begin.