Brook Hill (copy)

BULLARD — It’s been a steady progression for the Brook Hill girls basketball program.

When head coach Jereme Hubbard took over prior to the 2020-21 season, he was inheriting a program that had won just 11 total games the previous two seasons and hadn’t had a winning record since 2013, which is also when it earned the lone playoff victory in program history.

The Guard went 6-20 in Hubbard’s first season. The next season got better with a 16-18 mark and a playoff appearance in 2021-22. Then in 2022-23, the Guard posted a winning record, going 20-17 and again reaching the playoffs.

In 2023-24 is when the tide really started to turn as Brook Hill went 28-9, won its first playoff game in 11 years — 54-53 in overtime against Lubbock Trinity Christian — and missed making its first trip to the state tournament by one game, falling to Arlington Grace Prep, 54-45, in the regional final.

“It’s just crazy seeing the growth over the years and being a part of it,” said senior Lila Morris, who has been on the team all four years and was on the team in 2021-22. “Props to Coach Hubbard, because there aren’t many coaches that can go from turning around a program in five years.”

The Guard entered this season with big expectations. Three double-digit scorers were returning, along with other key players. Indeya Williams was coming over from Whitehouse after averaging 6.2 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.9 steals as a sophomore. And the Guard were adding multiple international boarding students.

But just days before the first game of the season, senior guard Brenna Hill, the reigning District MVP who averaged 16.7 points and 3.0 steals as a junior, tore her ACL.

“It was super hard for me,” Hill said. “It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve been through because basketball is pretty much my life, and I’ve been doing this since I was 5 years old, so finding out I couldn’t play my senior year was definitely a challenge.”

“From a coaching standpoint, I thought we had the talent to overcome it, and it’s kind of proven out that we do have the players to overcome it,” Hubbard said. “Now, would it be nice to have your nearly 20 points a game scorer and district MVP in the lineup? Absolutely. It would make us better. For her personally, she was very positive from the beginning. I think that helped her recover as fast as she did. That’s not to say there weren’t rough spots. There were obviously times where she was frustrated she was missing out on things, but she has been there with them the whole way.”

During the late-season stretch, Hill was able to make a 3-pointer in the final seconds of a win over Austin Brentwood Christian in the district tournament and then she got to play in the final seconds of the playoff victory over Lubbock Trinity Christian.

“It was one of the best feelings ever just being able to step on the floor for 10 seconds,” Hill said. “It was really fun.”

The season started and the Guard were 12-5 with the losses coming to Martin’s Mill, Tenaha, Jacksonville, Brownsboro and Sulphur Springs. There were also wins over Brownsboro, Tatum and Palestine mixed in there.

“We were 12-5, and we had just got blasted,” Hubbard said. “We had a team meeting the next day, and we said ‘OK, we’ve got to figure out what we’ve got to get straight.’ We’ve got to talk through all these things before we can get to where we want to be.”

From that point, the Guard are 23-1, winning a district title, collecting Hubbard’s 100th career victory and winning two playoff games over Lubbock Trinity Christian (56-42) and Fort Worth All Saints (54-36) to reach the TAPPS State Tournament for the first time in program history.

“It means a lot,” junior Remy Tonroy said. “All of our hard work has paid off. I’ve been here since Pre-K, seeing the program grow, going from losing every game to where we are now.”

“It’s very special,” junior Savannah Onley said. “I never want the season to end, and we get to end it hopefully with a big win. We’ve faced a lot of adversity, but we just keep pushing through and we just keep winning.”

“It means a great deal, especially transferring from another school,” Williams said. “It’s great to see the standard being set by going to the state tournament.”

“I’m super excited for my teammates, and I’m just really happy to see them get to do it,” said Hill, who played in the state tournament as a sophomore at Grace. “Even to be on the sidelines is just a blessing, getting to cheer them on.”

No. 4 Brook Hill (35-6) will meet No. 1 Midland Christian (28-7) in the state semifinals at 4 p.m. Thursday at University High School in Waco. The winner will advance to face either No. 2 The Woodlands Legacy Prep (28-3) or No. 10 League City Bay Area Christian at 1:30 p.m. Friday in the state championship at Waco Robinson High School.

“When you look at them on film, I think we’re the same team honestly,” Hubbard said of Midland Christian. “There are a lot of things about us that are the same. They love to play good pressure defense, which is ironic because in our two playoff wins, we’ve kind of backed off of that.

“Offensively, they have a couple of go-to players that can shoot the three if they get hot. We’re going to have to run them off the line. I would say even our kids right now feel like defensively we’re playing the best we’ve ever played. We’re going to have to continue to do that and be efficient on offense.”

When asked what the key to the success of the Guard has been this year, Hubbard and the players all agreed it is their togetherness.

“We all love each other and we would all die for each other,” Morris said. “We work hard together and we push each other.”

Players for Brook Hill are senior Brenna Hill, senior Karmen Miller, junior Remy Tonroy, freshman Bridge Speerly, freshman Victoria Agullo Lorido (Spain), junior Savannah Onley, senior Lila Morris, freshman Landrie Fite, senior Ania Chwalbinska (Poland), junior Indeya Williams, junior Mylee Booth and junior Zuzanna Majchrzak (Poland).

Coaches are Hubbard, Suzanne Braly and Jonathan Cox. Cox was on the Brook Hill boys team that advanced to the state tournament in 2013.