An almost-banned phone app ended San Marcos’ five-year postseason drought.
This season the Lady Rattlers found that bonding through their creation of Tik-Toks relates directly to their success on the floor. Spending hours recording videos of themselves dancing outside of school, perfecting every dance together while creating that team atmosphere as the year progressed was a key contributor. Senior forward Faith Phillips evaluated how the app has helped the team this season.
“I think just the millions of times of going over and over the dances, ‘We gotta do it again, we gotta do it again,’” Phillips said. “So, I mean if we really look at it, it kind of translates to basketball because we gotta remember the dance moves. We can remember all of the offenses, you know, I know it’s just a good team and I mean, it’s really fun to do.”
San Marcos snapped its five-year playoff drought after defeating Austin Bowie for the second time in five days, 51-35, Tuesday night inside the Snake Pit.
The Lady Rattlers danced their way through the lane like in one of their videos, forcing the referees to call a foul every time they drove to the basket. With 3:34 left in the first half, San Marcos had already shot 9-9 from the free throw line, giving the team a 29-12 lead heading into halftime. That came after a barrage of triples from the dance stars, including Phillips, who did most of her damage from the charity stripe, hitting 5-5 heading into halftime.
“I got to start attacking the basket more, that’s something I haven’t been doing this year as much. My free throws have been on, so I’m just thinking make the basket and then if I get fouled, I’m gonna knock down my free throws,” Phillips said. “My free throw percentage is pretty good this year, so I’m confident whenever I go to the free throw line.”
The confidence flowed through all of the girls’ veins leading to continuous trips to the line. At one point, the foul count was 8-0 in favor of the hosts after senior guard Kayla Presley was fouled on three-straight possessions. Freshman guard Bailey Guzman was described as having the sturdiest milly rock on the team — her shot was just as sturdy when she hit a step back in transition to extend the Lady Rattlers’ lead to 22 at the end of the third. It was the only field goal for San Marcos in the quarter.
In the end, giving a team 15 trips to the free throw line ultimately was too much for Bowie (2-14, 2-9 district). San Marcos finished 26-29 on charity shots and three players shot perfect from the line in the 51-35 win.
“It’s just been really fun experiencing this. This is my first time doing this,” junior guard Chelsea Williams said. “It’s just a really fun team to play because of the off-court stuff and I’m so happy for us.”
Phillips dropped in a game-high 17 points on 3-7 shooting from the field and 10-11 from the free throw line. Presley added nine points and seven rebounds to the stat sheet. Head coach Veronda Kendall said she is especially happy for her seniors who have led the team all year.
Whether it’s hitting the world’s most popular dances or the team eating their pre-game meal together, this squad has danced its way into a playoff berth. San Marcos (12-5, 7-5) returns to the floor Friday with unfinished business as the team has one more road trip against Austin Akins (0-12, 0-9) at 8 p.m. The Lady Rattlers are stuck in a gridlock in the standings, meaning this is the time to perfect use games as practice for the No. 1 seed in the bi-district round.
“We just talked to them about focusing on what’s important and not allowing their emotions ever to get too low or too high and just kind of staying middle ground, focused and disciplined. And we talk about that all the time,” Kendall said. “If I had to pick areas from tonight (to improve), it would be a little bit more communication on defense and just value in every single possession. You know, we didn’t need to turn the ball over tonight. And we had a few. So just areas like that to clean and sharpen as we near the end of the season and get ready for the playoffs.”
