Maysville Ready for Familiar Foe in “Panthers vs. Panthers’ Regional Semifinal
SOUTH ZANESVILLE, OH
A trip to the regional round of a state tournament doesn’t come around all that often…unless you’re Maysville of course. For the third straight year, the Panthers are district champions and have made it to the “sweet sixteen” in boys hoops in a feeling that truly never gets old.
“You know, it’s always just special because you know, while we’ve won it before, some of those kids had never won a district title before” says head coach Dave Brown. “So seeing their hard work pay off is really rewarding as a basketball coach.”
Even though the Panthers have been there before, that doesn’t mean that these Panthers have experienced a regional semifinal game.
Junior guard Gator Nichols says: “It’s really great. but the last two we’ve obviously had like, seniors and leaders. But this year, we had to, I had to step up, and Jordyn and a bunch of the junior class because we don’t have any seniors. So it’s pretty special.”
But as we move on to the regional semifinals, an old challenge awaits the Panthers once more from 17 miles up the road.
“I mean, ‘New Lex’ is a really good basketball team. They’ve got really good players, a really good coach” continued Brown. “So it should be a great matchup down in Athens as a regional semifinal.”
“Yeah, we’ve beat them twice, but that doesn’t matter. They’re a really good team and it’s hard to beat a team three times” added Nichols. “So we can’t just look past this game at all. They got a really good program over there, so it’s going to be a tough one.”
Despite playing a familiar opponent, that doesn’t make this journey any easier for Maysville.
“Well honestly, it’s tougher. I feel like just having a rivalry there, it just brings out the best in both teams. You really got to be ready to go” claims junior forward Jordyn Watson. “I mean, they know how we play. We know how they play, and we know they’re going to be ready to go. so we just got to be ready.
Brown states: “It’s going to be a dog fight. So, you know, we’re excited about playing a really good opponent in the regional and just being back at the ‘Big Green Palace’ will be a fun time.”
It’s a Panthers vs. Panthers matchup when Maysville faces New Lexington in a Division IV regional semifinal on Thursday night from the Convocation Center in Athens. You can tune into Z92 radio starting at 7:30 pm for all the coverage.
