The Brownwood Lady Lions shot just 26 percent from the floor and struggled to contain 6-3 center Aimee Flippin as the No. 12 Glen Rose Lady Tigers emerged with a 41-26 victory in the District 6-4A girls basketball opener for both teams Friday night at Warren Gym.
The Lady Lions (17-9, 0-1), winners of six of their last seven games prior to Friday night, converted just 9 of 40 shots including 2 of 14 three-pointers. Brownwood also committed 25 turnovers, which aided Glen Rose in keeping the Lady Lions at arm’s length throughout the contest.
“The girls played hard defensively, we kept ourselves in the ball game for about three and a half quarters, but it was tough to get any looks to go in the basket tonight,” said Lady Lions 13th-year head coach Heather Hohertz. “You can’t play four quarters against a team like that and not put the ball in the hoop and expect to be successful. We played hard, we didn’t play smart at times, but I liked my girls’ effort. We just couldn’t put the ball in the hoop.”
Brownwood trailed 11-5 after one quarter, 21-13 at halftime and faced a 29-18 deficit through three quarters.
“We started the game with too many turnovers and they did a good job of speeding us up and we didn’t control the tempo like we needed to control it,” Hohertz said. “The main thing they scored on was when we turned the ball over, and when we turn the ball over we’re not a very good basketball team.”
For Glen Rose (23-4, 1-0), Flippin scored 12 of her 18 points in the first half, while Alexis Rynders chipped in eight of her 14 points after halftime. Lily Melton tacked on six points and Samantha Ellenberger added three.
The Lady Lions were led by 12 points from Tessa Goodwin, six each from Kynslee Walker and Mady Pyle, and leading scorer Jaylen Savage was limited to two points.
Brownwood is back in action at Lampasas (22-6, 1-0) – an 88-23 winner over Gatesville (4-13, 0-1) Friday – at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, looking to even its district mark.
“Lampasas is an extremely tough place to play,” Hohertz said. “Teams I have coached in my career have always struggled there, and we struggled there last year, but this is a big game for us. We can’t afford to start district 0-2. We have to put the whole thing together offensively and defensively. The effort was there tonight, we just have to put in the execution and execute the game plan.”
