When Shayne Linzy took over the Lafayette girls program two seasons ago, the potential was there for what transpired inside the Mississippi Coliseum on Thursday night, he just had to help get his team there.

Coming from cross-town rival Oxford, where he had coached for six seasons, Linzy had a pedigree of a championship- winning coach having taken the Lady Chargers to a Class 5A state title in 2012 with a perfect 33-0 record. Linzy replaced John Sherman, current Lafayette boys head coach, who spent one season as the girls coach and finished with a 13-13 record and reached the second round of the state playoffs. The .500 record meant little to Linzy, as he saw the potential for something great to happen sooner rather than later.

“(The past two years) don’t happen without coach Sherman getting that base foundation formed and really getting them going,” Linzy said. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t mess up. But, I was able to continue to add because they were soaking it up so well. That was kind of the neat part as a coach to continue to add stuff.”

The Commodores soaked up enough in Linzy’s first season, they were able to improve their win total by nine and make a return trip to Jackson for the first time since the 2012 season. Once there, Lafayette fell to Florence, 65-63, in overtime of their quarterfinal game at Jackson State. Florence went on to lose to Quitman in the state championship. That game could be viewed as a the catalyst to what transpired this season with the Commodores increasing their win total by eight more games and raising the ‘Gold Ball’ inside the ‘Big House.’

“This was something that did get under their skin,” Linzy said of the Florence loss last season. “They wanted to kind of make amends. We had a lead in that game and blew it then lost in overtime. They wanted to make amends for that last year and they did.”