Heritage Hawks looking towards 'togetherness' ahead of 2023 season

While the start of the 2023 basketball season is still a couple of months away for the Heritage Hawks girls basketball team, summer workouts have been an important part of the preparations for the upcoming season. With several seniors looking to close out their final year of high school basketball on a high note and in order to do so, the Lady Hawks know how much “togetherness” has to factor into their game plan and that all begins now.

“This senior class, I already told them, they got to be solid, they got to be a fist. Even if they’re wrong, they got to be together,” Heritage head coach, Justin Stephens said early this week when we stopped by a Lady Hawks workout. Stephens would add that he would like to see his girls stick together through the wins and losses and understand that, “as long as they’re a unit and together, that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing with them,” Stephens said.

Senior Aliyah Shaffer would add that the Hawks can also reach their goals by learning to “play through the mistakes,” and not allowing any shortcomings impact how they move forward as a team. Shaffer would echo Stephens’ comments in regards to playing “together” because she believes that can be key in helping the Hawks achieve their goals for the season. Senior Sara Cushing noted that Heritage has “all the aspects we need to win, we just have to put them all together,” as she too believes that team comradery among the Hawks is going to valuable this season.

Communication and the need to “understand each other” are also going to be factors senior Lalah Logan added while her teammate Julia Susla says that she herself is “excited for the season” so that the Hawks can finally bring everything together for the senior class’ final high school run.