Connally 56 Liberty Hill 53

[trojan37]

Connally was able to pull out a squeaker last night against Liberty Hill in Belton. Liberty Hill had a chance to tie with 3.6 seconds left but missed. Connally moves on to face Mexia in the next round. I read on wacotrib.com that Liberty Hill has a kid, his last name is Farace, who is only a sophomore and is supposed to be awesome. I believe it said he had six three-pointers in the game. Conally's coach Snell had a lot of praise for him.

[Rocket Dad]

Congrats to Dist. 17 AAA ! Way to go Connally..

[K-MAC Chuck]

Michael Farace is the Panthers' point guard who last year started as a freshman. He's already drawn a lot of attention and is a "gamer."

The great thing about the talented Farace is that, while he could go out and average 24 points a game, he would rather score 10-12 and dish out 8 assists, getting his teammates involved in the scoring.

Congrats to Connally; good luck the rest of the way.

[K-MAC Chuck]

From earlier this season...
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Don’t ask Michael Farace to talk about anything other than his team

By Chuck Licata
Independent Staff

Forget about trying to talk to Liberty Hill High School guard Michael Farace.
Well, at least, forget about trying to talk to Michael Farace – the son of Tom and Carolyn Farace and brother to Ricahrd (10 years old) – about Michael Farace.
The 5-foot-11 guard – who, as a sophomore, may already be one of the most talented players to wear an LHHS basketball uniform – did everything but talk about himself during a 30-minute interview early Wednesday morning.
Instead, Farace (a native of Vero Beach, FL born Sept. 16, 1991) wanted to talk about the previous night’s loss to Mexia at The Panthers Den and, more importantly, his thoughts about how the Panthers had to come together as they prepared for District 18-3A play next week.
“I’m pretty confident we can go out and win the district title; I should say, if we play to our potential, we can win district,” stated Farace, a lover of Eddie V’s Edgewater Grille restaurants in Austin. “We started off this season playing a hard schedule – we played some really good teams. We suffered through some early losses but I hoped we would develop into more of a team, develop some team chemistry and get better playing together.”
After revealing the team was having a players-only meeting later that day, Farace continued, “This season has been like a roller coaster; we’ve lost to some teams we shouldn’t have, like Burnet for example. We fell to Burnet by one point. That was shocking to us – we crumbled because of a lack of experience playing together. We can come together, play together as a team. The first thing we need to learn is that this is no one’s team, but this is our team. I’m going to lay everything out on the line (during the meeting) – we can take this one step at a time, together. I feel we can all connect and come together and play as a team.”
The reason Farace – who admits he’s way too hard on himself – is hoping for the 2007-08 Panthers will come together is because of the success of the 2006-07 Panthers, who made it to the Region III quarterfinals last season.
Farace’s standards for himself – as a player and team leader – are pretty high, but it’s obvious he considers himself a small cog in the big “machine” that is the Panthers. He’ll do most anything to help further the success of the team.
“We have to adopt the concept that ‘losing is not an option’ and (develop) a winner’s mindset,” said Farace, who listens to the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. “We can’t accept losing, period. We have to learn to trust each other to pick each other up on the court. I see our mindset changing though; we recently we lost to Brock – a very good team - by four points and everyone felt really bad losing that game.”
After 20 minutes, Farace – who moved up to varsity last season when fellow guard Nick Russo sprained his ankle – finally spent a minute or so talking about himself.
“I need to become a better team leader; I need to be more positive,” stated the aggressive, versatile guard. “I need to instill more trust with my teammates. On the court I’ve gone from a player who’s intent is to ‘drive and kick out the ball’ and more to a ‘drive and finish the play’ player.
“If my teammates are open, then I’ll kick it out to them. In a close game, I’m confident enough in my skills to take the last shot. That’s how I feel: I want the ball if the game is close. But I also have the confidence in my teammates to dish to them for them to win the game too.”
Appropriately, Farace ended the conversation with two comments about someone else – his kid brother Richard and the LHHS coach, Barry Boren.
“Richard, who’s in fifth grade, is pretty good!” exclaimed a proud Big Brother. “The other day in a Cedar Park community basketball league he scored 23 of his team’s 27 team points. I’m really proud of him; he’s going to be a great player.”

[Adidas410s]

if only Liberty Hill could PASS the ball better while RUNning their offense! :p

[Adidas410s]

http://www.galleywinter.com/main/images/smiles/emo_moon.gif

[Adidas410s]

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[Panther One]

Farace is good athlete. He quarterbacked the JV football team as a freshman and had success in track, as well. It's too bad he didn't stick with football. He probably would have been starting somewhere this past season and would have a state title and a nice ring for his efforts.

[eagles_victory]

Originally posted by Panther One
Farace is good athlete. He quarterbacked the JV football team as a freshman and had success in track, as well. It's too bad he didn't stick with football. He probably would have been starting somewhere this past season and would have a state title and a nice ring for his efforts. Maybe he wanted something where he got a little more action then playing QB in LHs offense like watching tv or sleeping

[LH Panther Mom]

Originally posted by eagles_victory
Maybe he wanted something where he got a little more action then playing QB in LHs offense like watching tv or sleeping
Whatever gets the rings..... :p You know it's coming, it's up to you to stop it. :)


Seriously, he's a good basketball player. He was the Basketball Camp MVP the summer after his 8th grade.