MaxPreps Oregon Team of the Week presented by the Oregon National Guard

The Gold Beach girls basketball team has been a consistent winner since the turn of the century.

In fact, the Panthers won state titles in Class 2A in 2000 and 2002 and since have been a winning but not quite a championship program.

That could be changing.

Gold Beach is off to a 14-4 start and with one of the state's leading scorers, junior Hailey Timeus, a stellar defense and five freshmen on the roster, Chris Clark definitely likes the team's progress and attitude. In fact, he thinks that's the team's strength heading down to the final stretch run of the season.

The Panthers have been selected as the MaxPreps Oregon Team of the Week, presented by the Oregon National Guard.

"I would say at this point our biggest strength is the ability to enjoy the process of getting better and what that entails," he said. "With five freshmen, our team has to enjoy the process for ourselves and the girl next to you. I'm lucky to have the opportunity to see this work and improvement every day first hand."

It helps to have scorers like Timeus (16.6 points per game) and senior Morrgain Clifford (12.3) and co-captain Savanna Rucker (9.5) in the lineup, though what really keys the Panthers is defense.

The team gives up just 31.9 points per game. Once again, Clark said it's a unity thing.

"I think the defensive side for us is something that gets better as the year progresses," he said. "Our team works very hard to get better not just as individual defenders, but we really strive to come together as a team and understand what it means to play team defense as one unit."

Timeus excels on both ends of the court and after the whistle blows, Clark said.

"I think that besides her being a great shooter and athlete, it's her ability to lead our team," he said. "Hailey is a junior captain and has been a starter since she was a freshman and understands the importance of being a great teammate first. As our team improves together our team's and Hailey's scoring opportunities seem to improve."

With so many first-year varsity players, patience has been a key. The foundation laid by other players has helped the freshmen strive for greatness.

"This (freshman) group has a strong passion to compete at a higher level," Clark said. "At our level with numbers in the last few years, our kids at the lower seventh and eighth grade levels are starting to see their work with us in the summers or any other time is so crucial in building a foundation in order to step in as freshman and compete at the varsity level.

"This group has done that and are now seeing benefits that I think will only make this class and others around them work harder for Lady Panther basketball."

With all the pieces and passion, Clark sees good things for the Panthers down the stretch. What are they capable of?

"Our goal as a program is to put ourselves in the best position late in the season where we hope to be playing our best basketball as a team," Clark said. "With that opportunity and growth we will for sure face and have to overcome adversity along the way that we hope will only benefit our program in the process that we talk about daily."