Fair Grove High School’s Girls Basketball team won their second State Championship, marking Fair Grove’s first back to back State Championship. To celebrate their win, the high school held a pep rally during advisory on March 20th.
Christian Overstreet, the principal at Fair Grove High School, said, “These ladies have had an unbelievable season.” Throughout the assembly Overstreet asked some of the Fair Grove Basketball Girls questions about their seasons and roles that they had.
When asking Allison Findley (12) about her season, he stated, “Ally has won three state championships now. One in volleyball and two in basketball. Ally, does this state championship feel any different than the other ones?”
In response, Findley stated, “So this state championship, we really wanted to prove that it wasn’t a fluke, and so I think we did that.” She talked about how she thinks that her team shows a lot of talent. She also said how she thinks this championship they had a target on their back and they overcame that. She specifically said, “This championship was mainly a celebration of mental toughness.”
When Overstreet moved on, he talked about Hannah Maxwell (12). Overstreet said, “Unfortunately, during the district championship game, Hannah suffered a broken leg and so, her role kind of had to change a little bit.”
He went on to ask Maxwell, “How did you keep your positive attitude?”
Maxwell acknowledged and answered, “I was at every practice, most practices, cheering them on from the sideline, telling them what they could do better on defense, and just on the bench, I kept that same energy.”
Overstreet then went on and talked about Camdyn Hart (11). He mentioned, “Cam is a phenomenal offensive player. We all know that, but as of late, Coach Green has asked her to guard the other team’s best player, which if you’ve done that before, that’s a tall task to take on considering you also have to contribute on the offensive end.”
Overstreet went to ask Hart, “So Cam, what was your mindset like whenever coach Green asked you to do that?”
Hart explained, “Well, I’m a competitor, so I just knew I had to do it to win, because I’ve wanted to win since the beginning of this season.”
In addition, Overstreet asked both Ashton Bell (11) and Abby Green (11) what they felt they contributed to them doing so well during the season.
Bell explained, “I think just how determined we’ve always been. Whenever we were younger, we’d always watch the older girls play basketball, and obviously they didn’t have the same success as we did.” Bell added that being positive in the weightroom and while traveling was the best thing to do.
Towards the end of the pep rally Overstreet handed over the microphone to Fair Grove’s head coach, Gary Green.
Coach Green began and said, “First of all, thank you all for allowing me to be part of this family. This is something that I’ve prayed for. So I thank God for giving me the opportunity to be here and giving me credit for everything that’s happened in my life.”
When asked what motivated his season, Green said, “Definitely the people around me. I couldn’t be as successful as I was this season without everyone here and everyone in practice, so definitely a lot of my success is because of them.”
