With Park down several points in the first half, junior Kendall Coley said it felt good to end with a win. 

“Coming back and pushing through (and) just getting out of the hole we dug ourselves into (was a key moment),” Coley said.

According to senior and captain Shayla Miller, playing Como Park was a good challenge. 

“We were sick of losing. We watched this team (and) we knew this was one we could get, so we were hyped up,” Miller said. “(We were) a little overconfident because they were really good, but I think it definitely pushed us.”

Head coach Arsenio Richardson said the team started out playing poorly because of a lack of focus. 

“I don’t think we were in the right mindset. It was a little bit of that team being a good team, and a lot of it (was) us not being locked in,” Richardson said.

Coley said the competition turned out to be tougher than she expected. 

“Honestly we came in thinking ‘oh these girls are small so it shouldn’t be too hard’ —  we underestimated them. We realized we needed to step it up,” Coley said. “We didn’t feel like we were doing bad, but we weren’t doing as good as we could, so we decided to pick it up.”

According to Miller, several team members stepped up their game when the team needed them to. 

“I think girls who haven’t been scoring as much, myself included, were knocking down more shots today,” Miller said.

Richardson said Miller scoring her thousandth point was a monumental moment, and a turning point in the game. 

“My favorite moment was when we were coming back in on (Miller’s) thousandth point. It was on a shot we really needed her to make so it was a big shot and a big moment for her,” Richardson said.

Having good communication skills is key to improving the team’s mental game, according to Coley. 

“We have to keep communicating with each other and making sure no one is down,” Coley said. “We’re here to have fun (and) no one should be in their head and not having fun.”

Miller said winning this game will help the team feel a greater sense of self-assurance going into its upcoming home game Dec. 12 against Hopkins.  

“We play Hopkins coming up and they are the toughest team in the state to play, so if we wouldn’t have gotten this win we would not (be) confident at all going into that game,” Miller said.