Midway through the third quarter of Saturday’s D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championship, Dunbar girls’ basketball coach BreAnna Gross called a timeout to try to bring her team back to reality. The Crimson Tide had led Eastern for most of the afternoon, but its advantage had just been cut to three, and Gross’s players looked rattled.
“I’m just calling this timeout so you can get it together,” she told them. “You’re frantic out there, playing like you’re losing the game. We are winning this game — look at the scoreboard.”
Dunbar can be forgiven for equating a close game to a crisis. Entering Saturday, the Tide had won every league game by double digits. More than once, it held its opponent to single digits. The players knew they had the talent to beat the Ramblers at Coolidge on Saturday; their coach just needed to remind them.
Dunbar closed out the game with patience and poise, earning a 51-36 win and the program’s fifth straight DCIAA title.
“There’s pressure every season,” junior guard Emorean Thomas said. “People are doubting us, rooting against us. That’s hard. And it feels good to do something I always knew we could do.”
Knowing it can be hard for a team to grow without challenge, Gross and her staff sought out a tough nonconference schedule featuring private school powers such as St. John’s and Georgetown Visitation. When league play arrived, the Tide talked about playing every quarter as if it was losing. On Saturday, as Eastern’s pressure mounted, the coach had to tell her team that wasn’t actually the case.
Dunbar outscored the Ramblers 23-11 after that timeout in the third quarter. Sophomore forward Kirsten Holt, who earned game MVP honors, gave the Tide (20-9) an unmatchable presence down low and freed up an athletic stable of guards to make plays on the outside. Eastern (19-6), having its best season in years, never got within one score again.
When it was all over, the Dunbar players crowded around their trophy and held five fingers in the air, proud to repeat a tradition.
“Every game we play, we know that if we lose the other team will be on Instagram talking about it,” Holt said. “It would be a big deal. And we never want that.”
Next up is the D.C. State Athletic Association tournament, in which the public school powerhouse will have another chance to prove itself against private schools.
“We played those tough games early on to prepare us for games like today,” Gross said. “And hopefully they prepared us for states, too.”
