Jordyn Hartsfield named Smyrna girls basketball coach

It didn't take long for Smyrna to find its next girls basketball coach.

The school has promoted assistant Jordyn Hartsfield to lead the Lady Bulldogs in 2018-19.

"I'm very grateful to Mr. (Billy Harris, Smyrna athletic director) and Mr. (Rick Powell, Smyrna principal) for giving me the opportunity," said Hartsfield. "I'm going to try to do lead the girls to do the best they can and I'll do the best I can to make them successful student-athletes."

Hartsfield, the wife of first-year Blackman football coach Kit Hartsfield, was an assistant under Bud Brandon, who resigned earlier this month after three years with the Lady Bulldogs.

Hartsfield was his assistant for the past two seasons.

“We are excited to have Jordyn leading our girls program and feel that she is the right person for the job,” said Harris. “We did not feel that we needed to look elsewhere when we have a very qualified person on staff and in our building.”

Hartsfield was a standout player at Lawrence County (2006-10) and played at MTSU for one year before transferring to Belmont.

This is officially her first head coaching position, although she did accept the head girls position at Shelbyville last May before rescinding shortly after and staying at Smyrna.

She will have a young group to work with next season, but one with much more experience than this past season when the team was in complete rebuilding mode. The Lady Bulldogs do lose their top player in senior Brianna Chapman.

"We'll have some returning players, but we'll miss (Chapman's) leadership," Hartsfield said. "Hopefully we'll get numbers up, too. Our numbers were low on the team this year."

Reach Cecil Joyce at cjoyce@dnj.com or 615-278-5168 and on Twitter @Cecil_Joyce.