With the girls’ basketball season on the line, Lexington coach Jacobi Couch is looking for a change in attitude from his Lady Dawgs, who will face Holdenville at Jones High School on Thursday night.

The regional matchup tips off at 6 p.m. Lose and Lexington’s season comes to an end. Win and the girls will play another day.

Holdenville will present some problems for Couch’s team, which is coming off an uninspiring performance at Bethel on Friday night in a 65-19 loss.

“They’ve got some good size to ‘em,” Couch told The Register. “They’re one of those teams that if they get hot, they can beat you or we’re liable to beat them.”

To keep its season alive, Lexington will have to play complete basketball, Couch said.

“Just do all the right things, all the little, small things,” he said. “Be where we’re supposed to be defensively, taking care of the ball, rebounding, blocking out, getting back in transition, talking on defense, having energy.”

Lexington lacked focus in the Class 3A postseason opener against Bethel, which Couch attributed to the death of Doug Moore, a longtime youth pastor at Lexington First Baptist Church.

“I would like to think they put it behind them,” Couch said. “But they’re teenage girls, how could they not be affected by somebody that impacted every last one of their lives?

“Going into that Bethel game, especially with the funeral being the day before, I just felt like we were just kind of lethargic. I don’t blame them for it. I mean, that’s tough. Kids are already having a tough time dealing with their emotions and then you throw in someone who was important to all of them passing away the week before.”

Boys

Lexington’s season came to an end with a 57-48 loss to Bethel on Friday night.

Unlike the girls who lost their district game but still qualified for regionals, Derek Clark’s boys’ team could only afford one loss.

“We were in a three-team district, so we didn’t get to automatically go to regionals,” Clark told The Register.

The Bulldogs overcame a double-digit deficit against Bethel but couldn’t complete the comeback despite 20 points from sophomore Reece Beason.

Lexington (5-19) trailed by 17 points in the first half of Friday’s game, but battled back behind Beason, who knocked down five 3-point baskets.

“We closed the second quarter really good and got it to four (points) at halftime,” Clark said. “We won the third quarter by one (point).”

The game was tied 48-48 with 1:15 to go, but the Bulldogs were forced to foul, and Bethel made them pay from the foul line.

“It was actually closer than 57-48,” Clark said. “That’s them making free throws when we were having to foul at the end.”

Clark said the finish, while disappointing, was not unexpected since the Bulldogs returned only one starter from a team that won eight games during the 2024-25 season.

“You always want to win,” he said. “But also, coming into the year, I knew that we were going to have to get better throughout the year. I do feel like we did progress, even though it doesn’t necessarily show in the win and loss column that we continued to get better all year.

We went from getting beat by 15 to 30 at the beginning of the year to being able to stay in ballgames and keep them a lot closer and have better chances to win at the end of games.”

Lexington will lose starters Jordan Faulkenberry and Cale Garver to graduation, but return three starters in Beason, James McMillian and Cash Dierking, the team’s leading scorer, Clark said.