There’s nothing for the Sabine Pass Lady Sharks to hang their heads about, first year head coach Cody Almond said.

The Sharks lost Thursday’s area round playoff game against Shelbyville, 89-44, and Almond said he can’t fault the Dragons for being the better team, but after what the Sharks have accomplished this season, there’s no shortage of things to be proud of.

“We accomplished more than Sabine Pass basketball has ever accomplished on the girls side,” he said. “We broke every record they had, on offense, defense, records, winning district, everything as a whole was better than it’s ever been, so there’s nothing to hang our heads on. We showed what we could be. When we played our off game we were good, and when we played our good game we’re still good. We just took that next step for our team.”

Almond said the Sharks started strong Thursday night and only trailed by nine by the half. He said foul trouble and a few bad calls hurt the Sharks in a very competitive game.

“We played really well, we played hard,” he said. “It doesn’t show in the box score but our defense was awesome. They had one really good shooter that could just knock her shots down from anywhere, and that’s what inevitably hurt us a lot. In the scheme of things, they were a team like us. They were physical, they were athletic, they were fast, they played really good defense and they had the ball their way.”

Sabine Pass did manage to claim several superlatives.

Freshman Charnel Jones was named District 24-2A’s most valuable player, while sophomore Yainn Zuniga was named first team All-District and sophomore Nevaeh Jones was named second team All-District.

Seniors Brooklyn Dixon and Jamesia Jones were All-District honorable mention.

Almond was named coach of the year. He said he knew going into his first year as head coach that he had a talented team.

“It was just getting it out of them,” he said. “It took a little change for them, but I wanted to make the precedent that we’re going to be disciplined. Lets guard the ball well and let’s not stop whenever we can. Let’s play the game 115 percent the whole way and we’ll accomplish great things.”

Next year’s team will be returning six of the nine current players, along with a transfer that was ineligible to play who had been practicing all season.

There are a few small things Almond says he’s going to work to fix in next year’s team, but overall he feels very satisfied.

“I’ve learned what we have to do better for next season,” he said. “There’s not a lot that we have to fix. We’ll fix those things starting next season and we know, they know, I know what has to be different. Nothing really stopped us. It’s just we stopped ourselves in a lot of those losses, where we can make that better we can go the next step next year.”