What a difference a year makes - PSHS girls' basketball team turns it around!

What a difference a year makes.

Last season, the Philip Simmons High School girls’ basketball team won only five games in its first year of existence.

This season, the Iron Horses already have matched last year’s victory total and are jockeying to be ranked in the top 5 in the state.

The Iron Horses began the season unheralded and unranked, but won five of their first six games to earn the No. 2 state ranking in the South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association’s poll of Class AA teams.

However, the Iron Horses fell four spots to No. 6 after losses to Military Magnet and Socastee.

Still, that’s not bad for a team that has a junior, six sophomores and five eighth-graders on the roster. The future is extremely bright. The future also is now.

“People are starting to find out about Philip Simmons basketball,” second-year coach Dustin Williams said. “But we still have a long way to go.”

Williams has set some lofty goals for the team. The goals include winning the Region 6-AA championship, hosting a playoff game and making a deep playoff run. Oh yeah, there’s a fourth goal as well.

“We want to win the whole thing,” Williams said. “We want to win the state championship. People remember the state champions. They don’t remember who finished second.”

The program’s future is bright because of five talented eighth-graders: Kennedy Rivers, Zhaire Mack, Taleiyah Gibbs, Kylee Kellermann and Ella Soper.

Kellermann, Rivers and Mack were the catalysts of the team, and they are a year older, a year wiser and a year stronger -- physically and mentally.

“The girls were in the system last year and didn’t have to learn as much this year,” Williams said. “They had a year under their belt. This year was about structure: how we play and what our intentions are.”

Williams admits winning the state title in the second year of the program’s existence will be a huge, tough chore.

“We’re just going to take it one game at a time,” he said. “We want to double last year’s win total. Everything is a first for us. We want to make the playoffs, experience the atmosphere, travel and the quick turnaround of playing in the next round.”

Williams said having a team that is only two years old and ranked in the top 10 cause a double-edge. Teams didn’t want to lose to a relatively new program. Now, foes don’t want to lose to a team that is relatively new and ranked in the state.

Philip Simmons was scheduled to play Military Magnet and Socastee before breaking for Christmas. The season resumes when they host the Dunes Division of the Carolina Invitational. The tourney runs Dec. 27-29, and the Iron Horses will play Academic Magnet in the first round.

“The girls were happy with the rankings,” Williams said. “We try to keep them humble. It’s good to be ranked in the top 10, but we have a long way to go. But for us to get up to No. 2 shows how hard the girls have worked.”