By Keith Ledbetter

For the FCT

RED BAY – According to Red Bay’s head girls’ basketball coach, Donnie Roberts, the Lady Tigers have done really well during their summer practice and play dates.

Red Bay will not host a local play date this summer, but they will be on the road all this month playing Mississippi schools.

The Tigers ended their first play date the first week of June at New Site, Miss., with three wins and no losses for the day.

“Our best game was against Nettleton,” Roberts said.

“They had a really good athletic team, and we had a four point game with them. We beat a good team when we beat them.”

Red Bay played June 11 at Ripley, where they played the Ripley Lady Tigers, West Union and New Site.

On June 19, Red Bay played North Pontotoc and the 2014 Mississippi 4A state champ Booneville Blue Devils.

“I enjoy playing over there, because we never play these schools and they have good teams.”

Roberts and the Lady Tigers will be returning this year with seniors Hannah McKinney and Danielle Hastings, along with juniors Allie Kennedy, Darby Madden, Hope Cook, Morgan Pierce, Brooklyn Bolton, Katie Burks, Holly Hardin, and three freshmen.

Red Bay will be rebounding from an outstanding 32-4 season after winning the county, area, and regional championships to place runner up at state, losing to Woodland 65-52.

Roberts said that the Lady Tigers lost their three home play date games about this same time last year and they really didn’t start to come together until the beginning of the regular season.

“We came back to play the same teams during the season and we beat them,” he said.

“I’m hoping that will happen again this year.”

According to Roberts, offensively the Lady Tigers are going to be in good shape for the 2014-2015 season, but their defense needs more work.

“We can score pretty good, but we’ve got to work on playing man-to-man defense. We’ve just got to pick that up,” Roberts said.

Because the Alabama High School Athletic Association Central Board approved area alignment changes on January 22, 2014, Red Bay’s basketball program will move from Area 16 to Area 15 through 2016 and will include only Red Bay, Phil Campbell and Sulligent.