No stirring speeches are needed Thursday. Coaches won’t have to give any extra motivation when their squads take the floor at Northwestern this week.

The opponent across the floor will provide all the motivation needed as the Howard County Girls Basketball Tournament gets under way Thursday night. The tourney opens with Taylor meeting Western at 6 p.m., followed by Eastern vs. the host Purple Tigers at 8. The consolation is Saturday at noon, followed by the final at 2 p.m.

Western (8-5) lost to Taylor and Northwestern earlier this season, and edged Eastern. The senior-heavy Panther squad is eager for another crack at the hardware which Northwestern has held for the last three seasons.

“I don’t think you’ve got to get them [emotionally] ready for these two games,” Western coach Dave Merica said. “It’s one of those things where you don’t have to put anything on the bulletin board to get them psyched up. After getting beat by those two teams, our girls are hungry to get a win.”

The same holds for Class 2A No. 6-ranked Taylor (11-3), which owns wins over Western and Eastern, but lost by two points at Northwestern.

“They’re absolutely on fire to play and we certainly can’t look ahead,” Taylor coach Dennis Bentzler said, noting that his squad got up big on Western in the first half, but that the Panthers won the second half. “We would like for nothing more than to get an opportunity to play Northwestern. Coach [Todd] Miller’s done a fantastic job with those kids. They’ve got to be the favorites going in just based on the fact that they beat us and Western.

“Our kids are excited, they’re pumped, they’re ready to go.”

First-year Eastern coach Jeremy Dexter noted that each team enters with a winning record as Thursday’s second game features the host Tigers (8-3) vs. the Comets (6-5). The rivals haven’t played yet this season.

“This is my first time in it,” Dexter said. “It seems like we don’t have necessarily one big rival, it seems like all three of the teams, somebody doesn’t like, somebody wants to beat one of them really bad. The four schools in general compete against each other, kind of all rivals. It is kind of neat that way.”

Northwestern’s Miller is impressed with the field this season.

“I think that really the other three teams all have great offensive weapons,” he said. “If you really break it down, Western’s got a lot of seniors … so they’re going to be pretty fired up. Taylor’s got a great season going; they feel they’re capable of winning it.

“Eastern, they’ve adjusted with losing [Rachel] Bray; they probably feel they’re playing better,” Miller continued. He noted that the Comets will hope to “start the second half of their season out on a good note. Everybody’s got great motivation. It could be anybody, that’s for sure.”

Taylor vs. Western

The Titans won 69-58 on Dec. 6 and are led by the one-two scoring punch of all-arounder Teri Oliver (18 points per game) and guard Shelby Wall (14.5 ppg). Bentzler said his team was fortunate to hold on and win last month, and thinks his team is better now.

“We’re as healthy as we’ve been now,” he said. “Shelby’s shooting the ball now, she’s got her movement back in her ankle. We had some kids sick for a little bit. We know we’re going to have to play well. We think we’re pretty good, but we know the teams we’re up against are pretty good too.”

Western is led by perimeter players A.J. Finch (15.8 ppg) and Brooke Jackson (9.8 ppg).

“If we can control the game and take care of the ball, I think we can put ourselves in a position to win [against Taylor],” Merica said. He’s impressed with the talent and depth of the Titans.

“They’re ranked because they are good. We’re going to have to play good basketball to beat them.”

Northwestern vs. Eastern

The Tigers are hurting opponents with disruptive defense, forcing 24.8 turnovers a game. Miller said the team decided to concentrate on defense after graduating a big class from last season.

“We knew we lost some of our offensive weapons so we knew we needed to score in a variety of ways this year,” he said. “We feel like we play pretty good defense and put a lot of pressure on teams. We have forced a lot of turnovers which turn into easy baskets for us.”

Miller credited veteran guards Sarah Lubben (9.1 ppg) and Annelise Tarkington (8.1 ppg) with leading a young squad that had a lot of questions at the start of the season. Freshman post Kylie Ballard leads the team at 14.1 ppg, followed by post Rachel Lowden (9.7 ppg).

Eastern has rebounded from the loss of Bray to injury before the season with inside-outside player Chelsea Wilson (14.2 ppg), and guards Lyndsi Pence (8.3 ppg) and Carly Miles (8.1 ppg) taking up the scoring slack.

Dexter hopes the Comets can show improvement during the tourney by learning how to win close games. They’ve had trouble with that this season.

“Just closing the games out is something we’ve worked on a lot,” he said. “Because the [county] teams stack up very well, it’s an opportunity to … try to get that done and get that marquee win.”



Girls county tourney:

At Northwestern

Thursday

6 p.m. — Taylor vs. Western

8 p.m. — Eastern at Northwestern

Saturday

Noon — Consolation

2 p.m. — Championship