VALDOSTA, Ga. — Over the weekend several teams scrapped and clawed their way into the GHSA Championship games to be played next week. One such team in Class A is the Wheeler County Bulldogs girls team, but there is more to them than meets the eye.
The final buzzer sounded last Friday and Bulldog fans had plenty to cheer about. Coach Angelia Wright and her squad earned their way into Wednesday's state championship.
"They did what was necessary in order to get us to the championship game and what coach could want anything better?" Wright said.
The Bulldogs are a 29-1, region champs and have a date with the Macon Centreplex. They know they have something to prove after back-to-back Elite Eight finishes.
"It would be honorable, because it's been so long since Wheeler County has won a championship and so us coming through and just making this change, it's great. It's really great," said senior Le'la Wright.
The team's starting five have been playing together since they were in middle school and it shows in their chemistry on the floor.
"We're sisters. The whole team is just sisters, our bond is indescribable," said senior Keonya Mincey. "We love each other and we trust each other."
"We know what we're going to do. We read each other's mind's like, I know she's gonna pass it to me just by the way she looks at me so I stay ready," senior Samerria Bryant said.
The sisterhood translates to the classroom. The eight seniors on the team are all honor graduates and said they push each other in the classroom.
"There's a statistic that says a lot of people can't do both, but we prove them wrong and it means a lot especially being black, we're just representing," Le'la said.
Coach Wright said this is the strongest group she's coached in a long time.
"They possessed it, both the willpower that was necessary on the court to win ball games and the will power that was necessary to come out on top in the classroom and be honor graduates," Wright said.
Now the team is ready to represent in the state title game, the first one since the 1970's, according to Wright.
"We need it, we can put Alamo on the map and I plan on doing that," Mincey said.
The team will play at 6 p.m. in the Macon Centreplex on Wednesday against Central-Talbotton.