Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week: Laurence Manning's Hodge leads young Lady Swampcats

The Laurence Manning girls basketball team had an up-and-down regular season.

The Lady Swampcats only had two players with much varsity experience coming into the year, as most of the roster was making the combined leap from junior varsity.

Throughout the season, head coach Betsy Reynolds wanted to see if one of those young players would step up.

Ashley Rae Hodge was ready for the challenge.

The freshman has been a scoring fiend since the calendar turned to 2023. It all started with a game-winning three in overtime against Cardinal Newman in January. Last season, that run culminated with a string of stellar performances as LMA went 2-1 in a week packed with games. Hodge led the way through it all, earning Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week honors in the process.

"I have great teammates who are always there to cheer me on and great coaches to support me," Hodge said of the recognition. "The fans of the team are always there cheering us on. God just gave me the opportunity to play this sport."

Reynolds, who also coaches the JV squad, is thrilled to see how much Hodge has developed in such a short time.

"This has been building," Reynolds said. "I knew from last year that she was a scorer and a shooter, but the varsity level is totally different. For the first month or so, she was just getting used to it. Right around Christmas, she started picking up her scoring. After that, her confidence grew. It's kind of gotten to the point that we expect her to do well.

"In a way, it surprised me, and in a way, it didn't. I'm surprised it was a freshman that stepped up, but as far as Ashley Rae goes, after coaching her on JV, I knew what kind of player she could be. She just hit that varsity level of success a little quicker than I thought she would. I knew she could have success but didn't know it would happen this year."

Hodge started building momentum the previous week, scoring 18 points in a win over Ashley Hall on Feb. 3. She then led LMA in a busy week that included a pair of region contests and a matchup with Calhoun.

"We just had to take it one game at a time and focus on that first game," Hodge said. "I could worry about the next one after that."

The week started with a tough matchup against regular season and tournament champion Trinity Collegiate, but Hodge still managed nine points in the loss. She then led LMA on a two-game win streak to cap off the regular season. She scored 24 points in a win over Calhoun Academy, but the big matchup was their senior night game against Wilson Hall on Friday. Wilson Hall won their first meeting, and Hodge wasn't ready to let the Lady Barons earn a regular-season sweep.

"We didn't wanna lose again. We don't like losing to them," Hodge said. "We had to come up with some things like a press. Whatever we needed to do to get a win."

LMA trailed at the end of the first quarter of their rivalry matchup but opened the second with a 7-2 run and controlled most of the game. Wilson Hall made a late push to tighten the score, but the Lady 'Cats held on for a 34-33 win. Hodge was a monster in the game, scoring 19 points to go with five steals.

"Things kept going our way," Hodge said. "We were getting layups, and our shots were falling. We got up a little bit, and once we got up, we just kept going.

"It was very exciting."

Reynolds was most impressed by Hodge's ability to overcome a Wilson Hall team that game planned to slow her down.

"They like white on rice on top of her," Reynolds said. "That's the first time that's really happened to that extent. She knew that this was going to start, and we had that conversation. I told her people read those newspapers; they know who is scoring. She had to take on a lot of pressure in that regard, knowing that she was the go-to girl. She's handled it well. It's going to make her better in the long run."

Unfortunately for Hodge, LMA had to turn around and face the Lady Barons again three days later, and Wilson Hall was able to win the third matchup in the region tournament 51-42.

"I knew it would be a close game because we're so competitive," Hodge said. "We knew what we had to do to beat them; we just fell short."

The Lady Swampcats aren't done yet, though. They will open the SCISA 4A state playoffs against Hammond on Friday at the Sumter County Civic Center, and Hodge is looking forward to another tough matchup.

"I know it'll be a tough game; we've already played them once this year," Hodge said. "We're just going to have to do the best we can and not worry about anything else."

Whenever the season comes to an end, Hodge was able to learn a lot from the rollercoaster on varsity.

"We learned we had to work together as a team," Hodge said. "We knew we needed each other to win a game. Everyone played a role in every game."

Regardless of playoff success, Reynolds thinks that late push to end the regular season will pay dividends for this young team moving forward.

"I knew this would be a difficult season, or it could be because we were so young," Reynolds said. "We graduated so many, all of our post players and all of our height, and nobody grew. It has been a challenge, but the girls have hung in there, and we've played some really tough opponents along the way.

"My concern was how many times can you get beat down until you're not able to get back up. I think the thing that hit me last week was the ability to rise back up, win three games after having really a month of losses on them. This group was not used to losing at the JV level, so I was really proud of how they responded."