Lady Tigers Varsity Basketball still eyeing playoffs
The future of the Lady Tigers (6-7) basketball playoff hopes is still just too close to call as they split another pair of games. They have three games to play with Lehman, Seguin and Kerrville Tivy, all winnable. Tivy (4-5) is the other opponent in this quest and not all of their games have been reported. With the three games remaining in the district, the standings are thus. Canyon 13-1, Boerne Champion 11-2, Veterans Memorial 9-4, Tivy 4-5, DS 6-7, Seguin 1-5, Hays Johnson 1-5, Lehman 1-7, Alamo Heights 0-11.
In the past week, DS journeyed to Alamo Heights and found it to their liking as they rode the Lady Mules to a 58-29 victory. Home was not heaven as Veterans Memorial (VM) proved to be a thorn with a ragged 38-22 loss, putting third place out of play.
It was the same old same old for the Lady Tigers with VM. They had another poor shooting night and committed 13 turnovers. VM played a deliberate brand of offense designed to get the ball inside for short shots. They seldom shot a three. A good defensive effort by the Lady Tigers forced VM to work for everything they could get. Therefore a low-scoring game was the result.
Almost two minutes expired in the first before VM could manage a basket underneath. The Lady Tigers had trouble getting the ball down the court without turning it over. They had five turnovers before even getting a shot with the clock down to three minutes. DS failed to make any of their five attempts as the score slowly rose to 9-0. Finally with 31 seconds left, Chloe Fredenburg made the second of two free throw attempts to avoid the goose egg.
DS made a surge to start the second and got the score to within four (7-11). VM would go on a 4-0 run, gave up two and went on another 4-0 run to make it 9-19 at half. There was much movement but scoring was at a premium and it seemed the Lady Tigers were always in reach of the lead. They could just not get there.
Another drought in the third. Only six shots resulted in points. VM went on a 7-0 run to push the score to 26-9. Finally, Caroline Gamble would sink a jumper with 1.01 left and Teagan Huslig banked a three with 19 seconds to make it 14-26 after three.
It looked like the Lady Tigers may be getting back into the possibility of winning when they narrowed the gap to 28-20 with five minutes remaining. That would be it as VM would get a couple of baskets and then made their free throws when DS had to try the futile maneuver of fouling and hoping the opponent would miss. As usual, they did not.
Alamo Heights never put up much of a fight. The Lady Tigers pushed out to a 14-2 margin after one. Then continued the onslaught to the break to establish a 29-11 lead. Coach Norris called off the dogs after three with the score at 43-15 and turned the fourth over to the reserves; and they acquitted themselves quite well.
Vs AH: Gamble 9, Corbyn Davis 8, Lilee McGinnis 6, Ally Beck 6, Jordan Cox 6, Ella Smith 6, McKynna Hubbard 5, Gesena Mitchhart 4, Fredenburg 4, Ainsley Ballard 4.
Vs VM: Gamble 10, Huslig 5, Davis 2, Smith 2, Kiera O'Connor 2, Fredenburg 1.