Before I say anything about our last two games, let me first give out a shout out to our awesome fans!!!! You guys came out in droves last Friday night in Coleman, America and the girls and I really appreciate your spirit and support. You all are just as important as anything we do on the court. We hope to keep the ball rolling and hope that you guys can come along as well.

Since the last report we have played two games. We played Thorndale last Monday on Feb. 16 and squeaked out a win by the slimmest of margins- one point. I didn’t know a great deal about Thorndale but what I did know about them was that they had played at the Erwin Center last year and had several kids back from their state tournament run.

What I didn’t anticipate was their SIZE!!! They were huge, probably the biggest team we have faced all year. We jumped on them early and were up 7-0 before we had broken a sweat. Then we went stone cold and scored three points for the rest of the first half. We were down 18-10 at halftime.

We came out in the third quarter and played with a great deal of intensity and forced several turnovers and finally hit a few baskets. We were still down 25-22 at the end of three quarters.

Thorndale hit a couple of shots and started to pull away in the fourth quarter and things didn’t look too good for our Lady Dillos. With 1:14 left in the game we were down eight and things looked bleak.

Danessa Vasquez hit a big three to close the gap, Shelby got a steal and was fouled intentionally and then she hit some big freethrows and then Katy Davis hit a big bucket to tie things up. We fouled with about fourteen seconds left in the game and the Thorndale player hit only one of two freethrows. Thorndale called timeout and then Nicole Sears hit a huge shot with about two seconds to get the win for us.

During the timeout we just decided to run our OPEN offense and take what they gave us. The girl guarding Nicole got too close to her and she just made a great offensive play and she drove to the basket and hit the winner.

Coming home I felt we didn’t play all that well but after watching the tape we did some good things, we got open looks, we just couldn’t knock them down and the other thing is that Thorndale is good. I promise you, they will come out of Region 4 and be at Austin. The two Youngblood sisters can play and they have a shot to win the whole thing. I was very proud of the girls, they kept fighting and competing till the end and got a win, that’s why you play till the end, strange things can happen and we won a big one in Florence.

Shelby Hardy lead us with 12 points and she got all of her points from the freethrow line as she was 12 of 14. Calea Turner netted 10 points and Katy Davis and Haylee Oliver also scored 6 each.

Last Friday we got our first taste of the playoffs since 2001 and we were ready to play from the word go.

We jumped on Cisco really quick and never looked back. We had them down 15-1 at the end of the first quarter and they never knew what hit them. I had scouted their first round game with Nocona and after watching that I felt like we could rattle their guards.

Shelby, Calea, Danessa, Tarah, Bianca, and Nicole really pressured and rattled their guards into several turnovers.

We hit a bit of a lull in the second quarter as we had three straight turnovers but Danessa hit a big 3 near the end of the second quarter and we took a 26-8 lead in at halftime.

Cisco showed some fight in the third quarter and cut the lead to eleven at one point but Shelby and Calea hit back to back three pointers and pushed the lead back up around eighteen. We finished out the fourth quarter and claimed a big win for our program, school, and community.

Shelby Hardy and Haylee Oliver lead us in scoring with 12 each, Calea Turner chipped in 8, Tarah Crosby netted 6 and Katy Davis and Danessa Vasquez each scored 4.

When this comes out hopefully we are preparing for the Regional Tournament. We will have played Wall and I’m sure it will have been a WAR!!! We respect them but we know we can beat them. I know that we will have had a HUGE crowd and hopefully when you read this you are making plans to go to Midland on Friday. Regardless of what happens, we have a great group of girls and they have made us all proud this year. Phil 4:13.