The start of the season was slow. And rocky. The Lady Vols were doing something early on that they often don’t do, especially in the beginning of the season. They were losing.
Between November 8 and December 5, Bowie dropped six consecutive games, managing only three wins in their first ten matchups. The margins were tough to swallow—a 52-point loss to Southlake Carroll (81-29) on November 13, followed by a 73-37 defeat against Lake Ridge just five days later.
However, the Lady Vols refused to let the early slump define them. “We all were not in the right mind space,” admitted Jazly Bailey. “It brought us down. For the most part, we had to keep the motivation and keep pushing even though we were losing.”
The struggles were fueled in part by a depleted roster. Do-it-all center Azharia Johnson and 3-point specialist Auwinnah Hawkins were both sidelined with early injuries. But as the team returned to full health, their chemistry reignited.
“We started to do better when we had all our people back together,” Bailey said. Swing guard Z’Nyah Shell-Eaden agreed, noting that the team’s bonding was the catalyst for their turnaround. “Having everybody just makes everything better,” she said.
The recovery was nothing short of inspiring. From January 9 to February 3, the Lady Vols flipped the script, winning nine of ten games. This stretch included dominant victories, such as an 84-27 win over Haltom and a 71-17 blowout against Grand Prairie. They even found redemption against previous opponents; after losing to Lamar by four points early in the year, they cruised to a 60-34 victory in the rematch. As Jahkayla Bates put it, “We blew them out.”
The Lady Vols’ resilience carried them into the Class 6A Division II area-round playoffs, including a big win in the first round of the state playoffs. By the time they faced Prosper Rock Hill on February 20, Bowie had racked up 11 straight wins. Though their season eventually ended with a 66-44 loss to a hot Rock Hill team, the true story of the year wasn’t the final defeat. It was the fight.
Bowie finished the season with a 22-13 record, proving that a tough start doesn’t dictate the finish. Reflecting on the turnaround, Shell-Eaden offered a piece of advice for any team facing a difficult stretch: “You’ve got to be coachable and you can’t be playing in your head,” she said. “I get in my head a lot, but you’ve got to get out of it because you’ve got to win the game.”
