Scouring through the list of girls' basketball teams that no one in Class 5A wants to play this postseason, the same perennial powerhouse teams still intimidate the rest of the state with teams like Syracuse, Skyline, and Taylorsville dominating. After the month of January, Clearfield belongs on that list.

After going 1-4 to start Region 1 play, Clearfield ran off a six-game winning streak to end the month, with impressive region triumphs over Fremont, Weber and Northridge heading into this week's game against No. 1 ranked and unbeaten Syracuse.

Coach Rebecca Packer can't pin-point a particular moment that her team turned itself around, but she knows that whatever it was, its made the entire roster come together.

"I just think they started playing better together, the girls have just started pulling together putting full games together and figuring out the concept of intensity that they need to bringc" said Packer, "Our defense has been a big factor, the girls have held teams to pretty low scoring."

The Falcons defense has been staunch during the streak. No team has scored more than 47 points during the stretch, and in its last game against Weber, Clearfield held the Warriors without a point in the second period.

A big help to the interior defense is Jessica Watson, who along with Britlie Sylvester has been marvelous for the Falcons. Watson is averaging 20 rebounds a game this season on top of her 14.1 scoring average. Over the past six games, Watson has seen her team come together to get excellent results.

"We struggled at the first of the season, but it has been awesome to find out our strengths and how to execute our game. We knew we were better than our record showed, and somewhere along the way started believing in ourselves. Individually we had good talent, but it took working closely as a team to build this win streak," said Watson.

Watson really hasn't been alone in offensive production. During the win streak, Mackenzie Day has matched up with Watson perfectly by averaging 14.1 points as well, and Watson paired up with Sylvester in the middle to plug up a huge hole in the post

With the region title out of reach, the 7-4 Falcons have practical goals. Packer is just looking to get second place and keep improving.

"It's al about re-growing up again. The best prize in our region is second place, so we really want to hold on to that, but it's just such a tight race. At least we're peaking at the right time."