SAN SABA – Offensive inconsistency was the Achilles’ heel for the Brownwood Lady Lions throughout the 2020-21 girls basketball season, and it again reared its ugly head Monday night.
Fighting for their 12th consecutive trip to the playoffs, another cold shooting night doomed the Lady Lions, who fell to the Lampasas Lady Badgers, 51-36, in a battle for District 6-4A’s fourth and final playoff seed.
The Lady Lions, who defeated Lampasas by a 57-52 count at Warren Gym in the first meeting, dropped the last two, including a 62-40 road loss to the Lady Badgers.
“Our effort and game plan was where it needed to be, but that third quarter again was a plague for us only scoring four points,” said Lady Lions 12th-year head coach Heather Hohertz. “Lampasas brought it more in every category that they needed tonight and that was the difference in the ball game.”
Trailing 27-22 at halftime, the Lady Lions mustered just one free throw in the third period until Brooke Price knocked down a three-pointer with 15 seconds left. Lampasas took a 42-26 advantage into the fourth period.
Brownwood’s previous outing, a 45-27 loss at Stephenville, saw the Lady Lions trail just 14-12 at halftime. In that contest, however, Brownwood did not tally a point in the third period and faced a 28-12 deficit heading into the final eight minutes.
“The ball didn’t go in the hoop they way we needed it to but you can’t knock our effort,” Hohertz said. “My girls played hard for four quarters.”
The Lady Lions converted just 21 percent (10 of 47) of their field goal attempts in the season finale, including 20 percent (3 of 15) of their three-pointers. Brownwood sank 65 percent (13 of 20) of its free throws.
Jaylen Savage led the Lady Lions with 11 points off the bench trailed by Price and Tessa Goodwin with nine each, Lindsey Larose, Nayla Leach and Jadie Sudderth with two points apiece, and Alexa Arreola added a free throw.
Taylor Allen finished with 12 points for Lampasas followed by Morgan Lovejoy with 11, Juliana Dwaena and Cobie Chandler with eight each, and Addison McDonald with seven.
The Lady Lions trailed 16-12 after one quarter, but finished on a 6-2 run to close the gap. Then, in the second quarter, Brownwood gave up nine straight points to fall behind, 27-14. However, the Lady Lions held Lampasas scoreless the final 5:09 of the second quarter and trimmed the deficit to 27-22 at intermission thanks to an 8-0 run. Goodwin scored five points during the spurt, Savage added a bucket and Arreola sank a free throw.
In the third period, a free throw by Goodwin at the 7:02 mark shaved Lampasas’ lead to 29-23. But Brownwood went scoreless for the next 6:47 before Price drained a three, as the Lady Badgers chalked up 10 more points in that span. Brownwood also committed eight of its 20 turnovers in the third quarter.
The Lady Lions finished the season with a 9-15 overall record, while Lampasas improved to 20-8.
“We knew coming into this season it would be different, not just because of what we lost from last year but because of COVID and not getting to do some summer ball and go to tournaments and really get some team chemistry,” Hohertz said. “That really hurt us early on and I felt that effected us the whole season. But I’m not going to make excuses, our offense wasn’t where it needed to be this year.”
Monday’s game closed the careers of seniors Price, Larose and CarolAnn Hetzel.
“I want to thank my three seniors, the leadership and energy they brought every day will be missed,” Hohertz said. “For the underclassmen, hopefully this will leave a bad taste in their mouths going into next year. It was a disappointing ending to the season so we have to get back the drawing board, we have to get back to work and we have make sure we get back to being successful and getting into the playoffs. This is not what the program wants in missing the playoffs.”
