In a defensive struggle between former district rivals, the Brownwood Lady Lions generated just enough offense to slip past the Class 5A Abilene Wylie Lady Bulldogs for a 35-29 non-district victory Friday afternoon at Warren Gym.
Coming off a 52-20 loss to Midland Greenwood Tuesday, the Lady Lions (6-7) are now heading into the Christmas break with victories in three of their last four outings.
“It was an ugly game but any win we can get right now is a good win,” said Lady Lions 12th-year head coach Heather Hohertz. “The girls played hard, their effort was good. I’m proud of the way they bounced back from Tuesday’s performance. We weren’t ready to go and it was one of the worst performances I’ve seen from them. They bounced back in a big way today.”
The Lady Lions limited Wylie (5-6) to single digits in points in every quarter but the third. Clinging to a four-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, the Lady Lions held Wylie – which hurt its own cause with a 3 of 16 effort at the free throw line – to just four points in the final frame.
“We were running them off the line and we talked about that, getting them off the dribble some and not letting them just stand there and shoot,” Hohertz said. “I thought we did a really good job of that. In our rotation defensively we were doing a really good job communicating. I thought we did a really good job defensively on them.”
Offensively, all 10 Lady Lions scored, led by Tessa Goodwin with 13 points.
“We’ve been trying to get her going, she has all those shots around the rim,” Hohertz said of Goodwin. “I thought we got her going early and got her going to the basket and shooting some free throws. She came out today ready to go.”
Lindsey Larose chipped in six points followed by Kynslee Walker with five, Mady Pyle with three, CarolAnn Hetzel and Naysa Leach with two apiece and Alexa Arreola, Brooke Price, Jaylen Savage and Lexi Greer each contributed one point.
“We don’t have that one dominant scorer so everybody’s going to have to chip in here and there,” Hohertz said. “It’s what we’ve talked about since early in the year. They figured that out today and we came out successful.”
Knotted at 9 after one quarter, the Lady Lions surged in front in the second period. Hetzel’s bucket with 4:08 left in the first half pushed Brownwood back in front, 14-13, the last of seven lead changes. Then, at the 3:11 mark and again with 1:35 left in the half, three-pointers from Walker and Pyle staked Brownwood to a 20-13 advantage.
The Lady Lions carried a 21-15 lead into halftime, but Wylie eventually pulled even at 25 on a bucket by Morgan Travis with 2:10 remaining in the third period. Goodwin recorded a pair of buckets over the final 1:57, however, as Brownwood owned a 29-25 lead going into the final period.
Wylie crept within a bucket, 29-27, on a deuce from Kenyah Maroney just 58 seconds into the quarter. The Lady Lions answered with the next five points – two free throws from Goodwin, a driving bucket by Walker and a free throw from Price – to extend their lead back to the largest of the game, 34-27, with 1:27 to go.
Brownwood also held Wylie scoreless for a 5:48 span during the run, as the Lady Bulldogs’ final points came on a bucket from Travis with 1:16 on the clock.
Travis led Wylie with 12 points followed five each from Maroney and Caroline Steadman, three from Makinlee Bacon, and two each from Emma Melton and Ceci Widder.
The Lady Lions are back in action Tuesday, Dec. 29 as they welcome Merkel to the Brownwood Coliseum for a 4:30 p.m. contest.
