The 2015-16 season for the Warren Central girl’s basketball team was filled with youth who had to grow and mature as the season progressed.

Warren Central won its first six games and only dropped three in its first twelve of games. However, in the final month of the season the scales tipped over as the Lady Vikes lost five of their final seven games of the season to put together a 18-12 record. Out of the 12 losses this season, six of them were by double digits.

“Had a lot of ups and downs. I came in being very optimistic because I had a lot of returning players I thought would really have a better year than they did. Overall it was pretty good, I was happy and sad,” said the 2016 Vicksburg Post Coach of the Year Jackie Martin-Glass.

The Lady Vikes failed to reach the Class 6A playoffs last season, which was a goal for Martin-Glass to accomplish this year.

Looking at the team’s makeup, Martin-Glass has a group of individuals that were easy to coach.

“I had some that have really, really good attitudes, good leadership, willing to listen and learn. I didn’t have as many attitude issues that I had in the past with my players. I think we still have some adjustments to do next year but overall just the makeup of the team and the condition of the team, the look of the team was easy for me to coach them.”

Martin-Glass has a hard-nose personality and tends to focus what’s going wrong and sometimes forgets to talk about what’s right.

By now, her players are used to her personality and Martin-Glass said with each passing year she’s trying to change. She brings with her a lot of her previous coaching styles that had championship mentalities.

“They know if I fuss, stomp or do something I always tell them at the beginning of the year it’s not personal, I’m trying to get you to be your best and get you to play at the best level we need in order to win,” Martin-Glass said.

Coco Fultz and DD Caldwell showed the biggest improvement under Martin-Glass this season.

“I’m seeing DD Caldwell, she started to show some growth lately before she got injured. I saw her taking a role of being more of a leader and a scorer,” Martin-Glass said. “Coco, she has grown a lot and developed a force into around the goal as far as a post player being able to get balls and put backs. It was evident in the Clinton game.”

Throughout the season Martin-Glass had players miss games for a number of reasons, which caused her to plug in other players in the rotation. When picking players for the team, Martin-Glass tries to pick two players for each position so she doesn’t lose intensity at any one position.

For Matin-Glass, Murrah proved to hold two of the biggest downs for her team this season.

The Lady Vikes fell to Lady Mustangs twice this season and is responsible for the handling the Lady Vikes their largest defeat of the season at 28 points. Warren Central lost by two points in overtime during the first match with Murrah.

“Seeing my girls not execute, seeing them not having motivation after we almost beat them here was kind of tough to go through that,” Martin-Glass said. “I know somebody has to win or lose but I always put myself somewhere in that game at then end and not conceding and saying I’m down by 25 (points) with 2:00 left, chances are I’m not coming back.”

Murrah’s court conditions also worked against the Lady Vikes.

“It was a little bit less manicured. It was pretty slippery,” Martin-Glass said. “A lot of times when you walk on a court and you start seeing these elements it messes with your mental psyche and I had a lot of my girls complain about it’s slippery. Them going full speed was going to be a problem.”

Overall, Martin-Glass rates this season a seven on a 10-point scale.

“There were a lot of games I felt we should’ve won. We should’ve had a 20-win season. There were some games where I thought inexperience and not adjusting to my coaching style caused us to not close the game. Going forward I want to be a team that knows how to finish and close a game.”