BOILING SPRINGS, SC - As the women's basketball program at Boiling Springs has struggled the last decade or so to establish an identity, the Bulldogs program will now turn to a familiar face that was a part of their most recent success as they hired former Bulldogs Breanna Ray to take the reins of the program.
Ray, a 2007 graduate of Boiling Springs, was the point guard on one of the most successful teams in recent memory of the Bulldogs program as in 2007 they went 20-6 including a loss in the third round of the 4A playoffs. She also was a part of the first Lady Bulldogs basketball program to win a playoff game in 15 seasons, when her team won a playoff game in 2006. During her time with the Bulldogs, she was named the best defensive player in her sophomore and senior seasons while also being named best offensive player her junior season. When asked how it feels to be returning to her home school as her first varsity head coaching job, Ray said it's an unbelievable experience. "It's feels unbelievable because I never thought I'd be coming back." said Ray. "Here I am though now trying to lead this program to be better. I always watched this program from the outside at my other stops and wanted it to be better because it's the school I graduated from." Ray said that coming back home never crossed her mind until recent years with some changes at the school she was formerly at and that watching her former school from a distance she sees a lot of talent that she can build on. "In the last two years coming back crossed my mind after we had a recent coaching change," said Ray. "I mean things change all the time and it was for the better but it made me want to start exploring my options and coming back home became one of my top priorities. I see the talent in the program coming from everywhere as the community just keeps growing fast. I want to reach the young kids and get them playing at an early age which is something that I done a lot when I was at Dorman." Ray played for former Bulldogs coach Kristy Ray, who coached the Bulldogs for three seasons compiling a 33-40 record with two trips to the 4A playoffs with playoff wins in each of the last two seasons. "When I was a player here Coach Ray instilled into us on how to be a leader," said Ray. "Every day we would do leadership worksheets to build our character up that taught us how to and when to play hard and be competitors. At my last school, we instilled into them to be competitors and to learn that each nigh a target is on their back and we have to fight for anything we get." After a successful career for the Bulldogs, Ray went on to play college basketball for Limestone University where she started at least one game in each of the four seasons that she was there. Since 2016 Ray has been serving as an assistant coach with the Dorman girls basketball program where she has worked to develop the youth program as the director of the youth program and also worked as a varsity assistant coach. "I want to help build the youth league here in Boiling Springs by going to the different schools and telling the kids about the program and getting them to come see our games," said Ray. "At Dorman I wanted it to be fun for the younger kids when they came to visit and that's the biggest thing I want our young girls in Boiling Springs to know about basketball is that the game is fun." During her time as an assistant coach with the Cavaliers, Dorman has won four region championships while also finishing as the Upper State runners-up in 2017. Prior to her time at Dorman, Ray also served six seasons as the JV head girls basketball coach at Hillcrest High School in Greenville. Ray said that she is in the process of building out her coaching staff but is going to work to get some other former Bulldogs to join her as they know what it takes to be successful in basketball at Boiling Springs. "I've reached out to some former players to see what their interest level would be and I've gotten some positive responses," said Ray. "We want to get some Boiling Springs alumni in here with us because they know what it takes to be good again as the ones I've talked to have all had success here during their times as well." When looking around the arena and seeing the jersey of Sheila Foster along with a banner to the 1978 state championship team as well as the success of other teams including the ones that she was a part of, Ray said her goal is to make the stints of success a more long-term deal and says it will start with building the program up from the younger kids. "It starts with the younger kids in elementary school," said Ray. "We have to reach them early and have them playing basketball at a young age which will hopefully grown instead of them just starting to learn the game at the middle school level. That way when they get to the high school level, they'll be that much farther ahead." Comments are closed.
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