Putnam County plays an intense, suffocating style of basketball that has already led to several wins this season.
The Lady War Eagles favor applying a man-to-man press on their opponents. After scoring, they exert intense defensive pressure, with players closely guarding their assigned opponents in hopes of forcing a turnover.
Putnam head coach Derrick Arrington said the team decided to improve its press in the offseason.
“One of the main goals this season is to raise the intensity in practice and the level of adversity,” Arrington said. “They’ve done a good job of increasing the intensity and handling the pressure we put on them in practice.”
The results speak for themselves.
Through the first five regular-season games, all victories, the Lady War Eagles are forcing an average of 17 turnovers a game. They’re also averaging around 20 points per contest off turnovers through that five-game span.
Arrington was amazed to learn that statistic.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “That’s amazing.”
The Lady War Eagles opened the 2025-26 season Nov. 20 against rival Morgan County, a Class 2A top-10-ranked team.
They dominated the Lady Dogs 65-32, forcing 14 steals and scoring 27 points off turnovers.
Putnam maintained its defensive intensity in a 64-21 win over Hancock Central on Nov. 22, followed by a 60-23 victory over Prince Avenue Christian two days later in a Thanksgiving tournament at Clarke Central in Athens.
The Lady War Eagles closed out the holiday tournament Nov. 25 with a 56-29 victory over Class 5A’s Arabia Mountain. They totaled 22 steals and scored 34 points off turnovers in the win over the Lady Rams.
Finally, last Friday, Putnam defeated Baldwin, a preseason top-10-ranked Class 3A team, 61- 46.
Before each game, Arrington reminds his players of the importance of forcing turnovers.
“It leads to a lot of momentum,” he said. “We’re getting turnovers running the floor or rebounding, even getting out of the net fast running the floor. We’re going to try to exploit or test our opponents’ conditioning level.”
The Putnam team’s top five leaders in steals so far this season are Journey Waller, Melody Richardson, Jada Baker, Jaikarccie Smith, and A’Ziyah Williams.
Arrington said his players are accustomed to running different presses once they get to the high school level.
“It’s a lot of man-to-man, but at the high school, we can’t take full credit for it,” Arrington said. “They’re taught to play defense, and they start playing at the rec, and all of the rec league coaches in our town do a great job, and that’s transcending through our middle school program. All our middle school coaches do a great job, and when they come to high school, they have that defensive bug in them, and we just leaned into it.”
According to Arrington, applying effective, early-game defensive pressure sets the tone.
“We try to focus on one possession at a time, so believe it or not, sometimes we’re in a game and don’t realize what the score is,” Arrington said. “We’re just going to play as intensely as we can for this possession, and if we lose that possession, if we do get a steal and a layup, we’re going to do it again. Or, if they do get down there and make a bucket, we’re going to do it again.
“We’re just going to focus on every moment, every possession, and when the horn blows, the horn blows, and we’ll let the scoreboard take care of itself.”
Putnam returns to the court this weekend. The Lady War Eagles, ranked No. 6 in Class A Division I, will host Northeast (Macon) on Friday at 6 p.m., followed by a road game at Baldwin on Saturday at 6 p.m.