Kaila Higgins is just one reason Holtville has had such an illustrious season so far.
Her steady hand on defense has been on display all year, and although the Bulldogs suffered a 55-26 loss against Marbury last Thursday, that was still the case for Higgins.
“Her main specialty has always been defense,” Holtville coach Clint Pitchford said. “We can go into a game and there’s a team that maybe has a dominant scorer or a dominant guard that’s going to get up and down the floor pretty quick and give us some problems. We’ll a lot of times be able to kind of use her to play help and defend in that area.”
Higgins has anchored the Bulldog defense at a high level as she is amongst the team leaders with 40 steals and 40 pass deflections on the year.
With Higgins ability to anticipate her opponent’s game plan quickly, she becomes a problem for other offenses to execute any sort of scheme.
Along with being productive on the floor and the stat sheet, Higgins has also been a great senior leader for her team. Holtville boasts a dynamic array of guards with great scoring capabilities in Alexandra Vasile, Ana Brown, and Bella Brown; however Higgins has found ways to be an asset in any way she can for her team.
“She's a great team player, and sometimes you may not want your best scorer trying to guard the other team's best scorer, because they can just kind of wear you out just from the pace of play up and down the court,” Pitchford said. “Kaila does contribute from the scoring side as she's a great 3-point shooter, but defensively, she takes a lot of pride in that,” Pitchford said.
Even in a loss, Pitchford is still aware how valuable Higgin’s performance on both ends of the floor can be in the near future for Holtville with the postseason looming around the corner.
“Kaila was a sophomore starter for us, and then now she's a senior starter, still again, providing the defensive presence for her is always going to be there,” Pitchford said. “But I think now more than anything, all of them sort of realized that as we get closer down the stretch, their vocal leadership is extremely important collectively.”
Higgins will continue to be a key factor for the Bulldogs as they prepare to make a run beyond the regular season for only the second time in program history.
