The Brownwood Lady Lions’ offensive struggles at Warren Gym continued Tuesday night with a 61-49 home loss to the Burnet Lady Bulldogs.
The Lady Lions (10-6) converted just one field goal in each of the first and third quarters, while the Brownwood defense surrendered 20 points to Burnet (4-7) in the third quarter alone after giving up just 25 points in the first half.
“Credit to Burnet, they came in here and played harder and wanted it a little bit more than we did tonight,” said Lady Lions head coach Heather Hohertz. “For whatever reasons, we’ve struggled with starting strong at home. I have to figure out something different to do so that we’re starting the games better than the way we’ve been starting at home.”
Though the Lady Lions have already reached double figures in the win column, Brownwood has won just once on its home floor thus far.
In Tuesday’s loss, Brownwood shot just 26 percent (15 of 57) from the floor, including 19 percent (3 of 19) behind the three-point arc, and 65 percent (15 of 23) at the free throw line.
Scoring for the Lady Lions were Trinity Roberts with 13 points, Icess Hall with 10, Kate Tindol with seven, Jade Morin with six, Nylah Hall and Hannah Deen with five apiece, Cassidy Brown with two and Lanie Johnson with one point.
For Burnet, Sydney Lough scored a game-high 14 points trailed by Cydney Robison with 12, Emma Hashberger with 10, Sierra Schaefer and Wrigley Mulhollan with nine each, and Aubrey Mathews and with seven.
Trailing 13-7 after one quarter and 23-14 with 2:49 left in the first half, the Lady Lions put together their best offensive stretch of the game with a 12-2 run to end the half as Brownwood grabbed a 26-25 advantage at intermission.
After sinking a free throw the start the second half for a 27-25 lead, the Lady Lions then fell victim to a 13-3 Burnet spurt that resulted in a 38-30 hole for Brownwood at the 3:45 juncture. By the end of the third quarter, the Lady Lions stared at a 45-33 deficit.
“Our defense broke down and we didn’t get to the help side,” Hohertz said. “We let them get in the paint and dump it off to their post players and that’s just not a very good job by us playing defense. I don’t know if we were tired from the tournament, but we’re better competitors than that and I have to do a better job getting that out of them.”
The Lady Lions were able to close the gap to 49-42 with 5:03 remaining in the game, but got no closer.
“We didn’t stop fighting until the final buzzer, which is something to build on, but we have to find a way to be more consistent,” Hohertz said.
The Lady Lions will visit Class 2A No. 21 Goldthwaite (13-4) at 6:15 p.m. Friday.
