On Friday, the Coppell Cowgirls ended the preseason with a win over Colleyville Heritage, 66-46.

Despite a slow first quarter with Coppell leading, 12-7, the Cowgirls doubled their lead to 36-18 at halftime. Colleyville Heritage never managed to push back and the Cowgirls maintained a lead of 52-32 in the third quarter as well.

“At the end of the first quarter, we were doing almost everything wrong and still winning,” junior forward India Howard said. “Once we put our mind to it and focused, we started really beating them and turned it around.”

To sophomore guard Waverly Hassman, the first quarter felt like a warmup as the team hit its stride in the second quarter.

“We started making our shots, we started being more patient, our defense was a lot better and they couldn’t really handle it,” Hassman said. “We fixed a lot of things that our coaches had been harping on us to improve. Moving forward, we want to only make new mistakes so we have new things to work on.”

To Howard, the main goal to improve on will be on communication. As there are no team captains this year, she thinks every member will have to step up and help each other out.

“Too often, we’re sitting there quiet, because we don’t want to look bad and so we get on the court and mess it up, because one person didn’t know what was going on and they wouldn’t say anything.” Howard said. “Our communication could be a lot better and that’s when we become successful because we’re looking out for the person next to us.”

Tonight’s game against Plano at 6:30 p.m. comes with an added pressure as it is the first district game. Plano is believed to be the District 6-6A favorite this year. 

“It’s been more acceptable to lose preseason because those are learning opportunities,” Howard said. “You don’t realize how much you’ve messed up until you see you’ve lost. Now that district is here, we can’t afford that.”

This year, the Cowgirls’ main goal is to make the playoffs.

“We spent weeks preparing for it, and now it’s time to put it all together and go to work,” Howard said. “We already took our time losing and I’ve had enough of that. I’m ready to win.”