Richland, Chiawana renew rivalry with state tournament on the line

At this point in the season every game is going to be super difficult. We look at it as a championship opportunity and that was the first step to it and we treat the next one like a championship again and you keep doing that for a long time and you put yourself in a good position. We'll keep continuing to always look at every opponent and see different ways we can hurt them and always keeping the game state in mind and what the game is asking for. It's a small step in the process but it's a big win for us and just to battle the game on. Obviously we know they're going to be close games from here on out but just to get that win among us and it'd be the first game feels really good. In both games we didn't quit right and they were highly contested competitions that um you know obviously Chihuahua is a good side um you know they finished first in league number one seed coming out of the MCC so um I think for us you know in both both matches um certainly in um You know, interesting conditions, our team never quit, right? And so back against the wall, continued to fight. And so that's something that at least I took away from it, which is important for us again, back to kind of our philosophy and what our foundation is within our program. As long as you have a team that doesn't quit, then, you know, the rest will just come. The Richland program has always been solid. The talent has always been there. For me, it's always part of, you know, wherever I'm at, my foundation, just because that's how I grew up, that's how I played. You know, when things were not going your way and not necessarily something that you could 100% control on the field, I was always taught to just continue to work hard, right? And so, if the work ethic is there on the pitch, that usually overcompensates for other things that may not be working in your favor. As long as you have that as the foundation, I think other things will, you know, build upon that. Both teams are so good. And just going against each other like you know like something's at stake for that, like it just makes everyone work harder. We didn't come out like we did the first time we played them. It's really hard to bounce back, especially in a heated game like that. It's really hard to come from behind and get one. I think we were pushing really well at the end of it, but obviously we can't start working hard at the end of the game. Going out there and like Working our hardest in the first 10 minutes, like as hard as we worked in the last 10 minutes of that game, just putting that all of our like 100% in the first 10. You want to especially playing each other is just super competitive. Everyone wants to win. And so just having the environment of everyone wanting to work hard and competing with each other is just a really great environment to be in because everyone gets better. Just going up against a good team that's super competitive. We all just want to play our best. So it's just. It's a very competitive environment that we're going into so everyone needs to be prepared and just ready to play.