Jan. 15—HATTON — A month or so before the season started last year, the Hatton girls had their first practice with their new coach, Sadie Thompson.
The first-year coach was standing on the sidelines of the old Hatton gym. She wasn’t barking orders or calling plays like a coach normally would during practice. Instead, she had the ball in her hands.
“I was just running an offense, and I wanted to show them how to beat the press. So, I told them to see if they can stop me,” Thompson said. “It was just me.”
Thompson beat the Hornets’ press and cruised to the other side of the court.
“She was just showing us out,” Hatton senior Alaska Jones said. “She’ll get the ball, come down the court all by herself and you can really see that competitiveness in her.”
Thompson graduated from UAH last May and was a basketball star across the county in Moulton, leading Lawrence County to a 19-3 record and averaging 21 points per game in her senior season.
When the new coach was done with the Hornets, Thompson said her players were shocked to see their coach run a drill with them, and it quickly took the energy from zero to 100.
“They said, ‘All right, let’s go again. You’re not going to break it again,” Thompson said. “And I didn’t, they locked in.”
Senior Hatton guard Eva Armstead said that moment was huge for the team because it made them realize how much their new coach cared.
“When she practices with us, it’s crazy,” Armstead said. “She’ll dribble through the whole press and do a reverse layup like it’s nothing. She’ll get in there and play dirty with us. It makes me feel like I’m playing for a teammate that’s right beside me.”
The players’ buy-in showed immediately. Hatton opened the season with seven straight wins, eclipsing their six-win total from last season in just two weeks of the new year.
The first games against Rogers and Danville they won by a combined margin of 22. Last season they lost both by a combined 34.
“ That first game, we surprised ourselves because we faced a team that killed us last year and we beat them. Then, the next game, we played a team that blew us out of the water last year, and then we blew them out of the water,” Jones said. “We were just so happy.”
Thompson said part of the reason they’re playing so well is because the team has gotten so close.
“These girls, they’re all friends. You can tell because they’ll sit together before a game, and they’ll talk or make TikTok. You can tell that they all have a bond. It’s not one sitting over here and one sitting over here,” she said. “They’re all sitting together because they’re all friends, and that starts with the two seniors leading and getting everybody together.”
Jones and Armstead are the team’s only seniors and have been best friends since third grade.
“They used to make fun of Alaska because she slept every day in class. I told them they shouldn’t pick on her like that and then we became close. Then she moved down to where I lived,” Armstead said. “Behind the Hazlewood football field there’s a slab of concrete behind it. We pushed a basketball goal all the way up there and we played basketball every day.”
Armstead said they’ve been playing together since 6U and have developed an on-court chemistry that’s hard to match.
“She’s (Armstead) fast, nobody’s keeping up with her. She’ll steal the ball and everybody’s still back there,” Jones said. “She always brings one hundred percent. Even if she’s down, she lifts other people up. That’s what I really like about her.”
That on-court chemistry helps during games, said Thompson.
“It’s the communication and the timeouts that people really don’t see,” Thompson said. “Like they’re telling me, ‘Hey coach, we’re seeing this. This girl’s doing this on this play.’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s do this then.’ The communication between me and them, and them and the players is huge.”
Thompson and Jones said they just wanted to leave the program better than they found it.
“I really want to set a good example for my sister because she’s a junior,” Jones said. “That’s what I’m really trying to do, just establish myself so when other people come up, they can look up to me and come talk to me because I like being a leader.”
From 2019-22, the Hatton girls made four consecutive regional tournament appearances, reaching the Elite Eight twice and the state finals once.
However, in the last two years, the Hornets have struggled, finishing with records of 6-20 last season and 9-15 the year before.
“Building a foundation for next year and turning this program around is really something that’s been like a hot topic in the locker room and in the classroom,” Armstead said. “We just want to turn the program around and keep it that way. Like the way old Hatton basketball used to be.”
Now with a new coach and a fresh team, Thompson said their sights are not set on just filling up the win column anymore; they want a trip to the regional tournament at Wallace State.
“When we play Wilson and Central again, they know what’s on the line and they’re locked in,” Thompson said. “You can tell they want to go to Wallace and these seniors have never been so getting them there is the goal.”
As of Jan 13, Hatton is second in Class 4A Area 14 with a 3-2 record. With Deshler most likely taking the top seed, they’ll have to win their next games against Central-Florence and Wilson to secure the second seed before area tournaments.
The Hornets will go to Wilson on Jan. 20 and then on to Central three days later.
