Historical. That’s the only way to describe the 2015-16 Southern Lehigh girls basketball team’s season. It was one that began with doubts and ended with a bang, a story of young playmakers coinciding with senior leadership.

The season began in the least enviable way possible, with a loss to a very good Dunmore team that would go on to play in the state championship. From there the Spartans had a blowout win against the Wilson Warriors and never looked back. The team would go on to win 27 straight games until finally ending their spellbinding season in the second round of state playoffs against Berks Catholic in a closely contested game with a sensational finish that just didn’t go the Spartans’ way.

However, it is what happened between the Spartans’ season book-end losses that made it so brilliant. Over the course of the winter of 2015 and the spring of 2016 the girls basketball team reached new heights.

After Southern Lehigh’s loss to Dunmore, the team gained an energy not often seen in a team after being dealt a loss.

“I think that the loss to Dunmore actually gave us a bit of a kick in the butt,” senior Brianna Mobley said. “It gave us a taste of what losing felt like.”

It only got better from there for the Spartans. The 27-game winning streak included huge victories over Palmerton who they blew out of the gym with a final score of 67-19, and dropped 86 points on a struggling Pen Argyl team. After the regular season concluded, the Spartans cruised through the Colonial League playoffs and held off a very good Palisades team 47-36 to win the Colonial League championship title.

“[During the practices] I think the energy was really high and we were ready to just keep winning and keep going far into states and districts,” freshman Olivia Snyder said.

After blowing through the Colonial League in dramatic fashion, the Spartans began their district and state playoff run. The first step on the road to Hershey required them to defeat both Bethlehem Catholic and Allentown Central Catholic. These two teams have been a perennial road block for Southern Lehigh and are one of the main reasons they never won a district title in years past. But this was the year the Spartans beat the sectarian schools to claim the District XI girls basketball title.

“Winning the district title was really amazing, honestly, especially as a senior, making history,” Brianna Mobley said. “One by beating the two Catholic schools, and then winning the district title for the first time was honestly the most fantastic feeling.”

From there, the streak continued into the state playoffs. This was not a team that was going to be satisfied with just winning a district title. The energy that the Spartans had as a unit wanted to rewrite the history books of Southern Lehigh girls basketball.

So they continued to do just that as they won the first round of state playoffs over York Suburban High School as the top seeded team in the tournament. During the game, despite being only up by two points at the half, the Spartans came out of the second half firing on all cylinders and held the Trojans scoreless for five minutes while they completed their own 10-0 run to win the game 45-34.

“[After the York Suburban win] we were just ready to keep going and take it one game at a time,” Snyder said. “We knew they were a really good team and it felt good to beat them and make it to the second round of states.”

Following the win the Southern Lehigh girls learned that they would be playing second seeded Berks Catholic in the second round. The Saints had just come off a 30-point win in the first round of the tournament. The Spartans opposition had discernible height advantage with two starters, one of whom is a division one basketball recruit, standing six feet or taller.

Southern Lehigh began the game slowly by scoring only 11 points in the first half, the lowest number of points scored in a half by the Spartans all season long. Despite the lackluster first half, the they battled back into the game in the second half, although foul trouble led to star senior Sydney Cry exiting the game late in the half. The two teams jockeyed for the lead until the finish.

With 30 seconds left, sophomore Amanda Mobley, who was questionable for the game after suffering an ankle injury in the previous game, drilled a three-pointer to tie the game at 38. The Saints drove down the court and scored to put themselves up by two. Southern Lehigh managed to bring the ball down to slightly past half court where Amanda Mobley launched a thirty-foot shot with no time left to win the game, going just wide of the basket to end the season with a heartbreaking loss.

Despite the loss, this is not a team that should be remembered for what it didn’t do, but for what it did do. It rewrote history with an untraditional team made up of starters from all grade levels.  Freshman Olivia Snyder lead the team in points, and finished second in Southern Lehigh history for most points scored by a freshman with 383 points enroute to second team all Colonial League Honors. Fellow freshman Ellie Cassel finished the season third on the team in points, and her performance throughout the season garnered her a spot as a honorable mention All Colonial League. Standout Southern Lehigh senior Sydney Cyr finished the season as a first team All Colonial League forward. Joining her on the first team All Colonial League is sophomore guard Amanda Mobley.

“Because everyone is so friendly and so goofy, everybody just kind of came together really nicely as a family and as a team,” Brianna Mobley said, “And that really helped us throughout the season because you can’t win games if you don’t like the people you’re playing with.”

The legendary season will carry on in the record books, banners, and trophies won by this record breaking, fun loving team that came together to form the greatest team in Southern Lehigh girls basketball history.