Mexico girls basketball ended last season in a strong way and wants its starts to be just as strong.

The Lady Bulldogs advanced to the state quarterfinals for the first time since 1997 after winning their first district title since 2006. They have several girls returning from that 16-14 team.

Head coach Makenzie Mudd said she aims to have at least 10 of the 19 girls on varsity. Mexico would like to end this season strong as well, but she said she hopes it can avoid trailing early in games like what happened frequently last season.

“There were slow starts last year so that’s going to be our goal,” Mudd said. “We’re working on conditioning and making sure we’re ready to go. Be quick and get things started faster than we did last year.”

Mudd said conditioning has been a big focus at practice because she believes Mexico has the potential to play at a quick pace. Claire Hudson is playing in college now so she won’t be able to lead the Lady Bulldogs in points, rebounds and assists again, but Mudd said there is plenty of skill returning.

Three starters who had big contributions for Mexico last season were all-conference and all-district Scottie Smith and Grace Hudson and Alyssa Miller. Smith showed an ability to score and rebound, and her fellow sophomore Miller had a knack for hitting perimeter shots. Hudson returns after her double-digit scoring sophomore season as the point guard was cut short because of a knee injury.

“We want to focus on that speed up and down the floor,” Mudd said. “We want to focus on looking for good shot opportunities and not passing the ball around too much. We can make good shots, but sometimes, we overthink things and second guess ourselves.”

Hannah Loyd and Landri Teel are senior post players so Mudd is expecting to lead the roster and Mexico’s efforts down low. Payton Shaw and Madison Bickell are juniors coming back and Charleigh Douglas is a junior transfer from Macon.

“With her aggressive play, it’s going to be a big difference maker,” Mudd said about Douglas. “She goes after everything. It kind of reminds me of some of the attributes we lost when we lost Claire of being everywhere, going after it and being a floor leader.”

Layla Belcher is another junior who played junior varsity last season, and Mudd thinks she can bring length and athleticism to varsity this season. That length can also help on defense, which Mudd emphasized a season ago and still doing.

“I want to play some different types of defense,” Mudd said. “I want to be ready to go back-and-forth like we might be in a man set this possession and then might go to this zone or that zone. We want to keep opponents on their toes and not be prepared for what we bring out to them.”

Mudd said finishing strong this season is possible by everybody playing together.

“We’ve still got a lot of talent and a lot of ability to do a lot of big things again this year,” Mudd said. “We want to work on that teamwork aspect – how can we create for each other and make good things happen to fill in those gaps left behind by the seniors.”