Wow, what a season it has been for the 7th Grade Lady Dillos! I must say, they must be extremely proud of themselves, as I know there are a lot of people who are extremely proud of them! We ended the season as DISTRICT CO-CHAMPIONS and a record of 14-3!!!! I know the girls, as well as myself, wanted that district championship out right, but like I told them after the game against Hamilton, “It could always be worse!” These girls have improved so much from day one, and I cannot say enough good things about them. This group will continue to do some big things at San Saba over the years, and I cannot wait to watch them grow. I am so proud of them and was extremely blessed to coach such an amazing group of young ladies.I apologize for not getting articles in the paper weekly. It was somewhat difficult for me trying to keep up with two teams weekly. I told the girls that I would make up for it with this article, or will atleast do my best. So basically here is a run down of the amazing season that these girls had. I apologize for the whole book I have written!! We begin the season against Early who had a great team, but we came out ready to play and got after them. We ended up beating them 33-27. Saveria Vasquez led all scoring with 17 points, followed by Kimeri Moore, Bailie Santeufemia, and Raylee Pannell all with 4 points, and Kassiy Ellis and Alexis Patterson with 2 points. The next game we took on Bangs, at Bangs, which is always tough. We ended up winning by quite a bit, 38-11. Scorers for this game was Saveria Vasquez with 14 points, Kimeri Moore with 8 points, Hannah Hibler, Alexis Patterson, and Bailie Santeufemia with 4 points, and Raley Kirk and Kassidy Ellis each with 2 points. For our third game, we played Coleman. We won by a score of 35-23. Scorers for this game were Saveria Vasquez with 13, Kimeri Moore and Raylee Pannell each had 10 a piece, and Raley Kirk had 2 points. We then played Early again for our second round of half the district. We went to Early and beat them in a nail biter, 24-22. Scorers for the game were Saveria Vasquez with 17 points, Kimeri Moore with 3 points, Raylee Pannell with 2 points, and Kassidy Ellis and Raley Kirk each chipping in 1 point. The second time we played Bangs, we beat them 33-11. Scorers for the game were Raylee Pannell and Saveria Vasquez with 8 points each, Hannah Hibler with 5, Bailie Santeufemia and Raley Kirk with 4 points, and Kimeri Moore and Alexis Patterson with 2 points each.We then took a little break from district to attend the Brady tournament. Apparently there was some excitement there as our girls came from behind to win the Championship game against Brady, 33-30. Scorers for this game were Saveria Vasquez with 21 points, Kimeri Moore with 6 points, Raylee Pannell with 4 points, and Bailie Santeufemia with 2 points. All I know is I was a nervous wreck sitting in Junction at the High School tournament getting texts about this game. I was so proud of them for coming out on top.We then started back with district play, picking right back up with Coleman. We beat them 39-8. Scorers for this game were Saveria Vasquez with 12 points, Kimeri Moore with 7, Raylee Pannell with 6, Bailie Santeufemia with 5, Alexis Patterson with 4, Kassidy Ellis with 3, and Raley Kirk with 2. Before Christmas break, we played Hico beating them 21-13. Scorers were Saveria Vasquez with 15 points and Kimeri Moore with 6 points. We then played in the San Saba tournament. We beat Goldthwaite 31-10 in the first game with Saveria Vasquez leading all scorers with 20 points, Kimeri Moore following with 7 points, and Kassidy Ellis and Raley Kirk each with 2 points. We then went on to the championship to take on Brady again, but lost in a hard fought battle with them. We ended up losing 31-33. The girls played so hard that game, but they knew instantly that they did NOT like what losing felt like. Saveria led all scorers with 17. Following behind her was Kimeri with 5, Raley Kirk with 4, Raylee Pannell with 3, and Alexis Patterson with 2.We picked ourselves right back up, and beat Comanche the next game 35-14. Scorers were Saveria Vasquez with 14, Hannah Hibler and Bailie Santeufemia each with 6 points, Raley Kirk with 5, and Kimeri Moore with 3 points. We then took on Hamilton, who we struggled against. They apparently had their best game of the season against us the first go-around. Seems like that always happens! We ended up losing 42-28. The girls played hard just struggled the whole game. To get ourselves back on the winning track, and to still have a shot at the district championship, we went to Dublin looking for a big win. Man, did they have some tall girls!!! I don’t know if at that point I had ever been so proud of this group! We came away with a big win 31-17. Scorers for this game: Saveria with 11, Raylee Pannell with 6, Kimeri with 5, Bailie with 4, and Hannah and Alexis each with 2. After the Dublin game, we knew we needed to win against Hico to go to Hamilton with a chance at being district champions. We took care of business against them and ended up beating Hico 29-16. Scorers for this game: Saveria with 13, Kimeri with 6, Raylee Pannell and Alexis Patterson each with 3, and Hannah with 2. Now comes to biggest game of these girls’ lives…..We went to Hamilton knowing that Hamilton had 2 losses, while we only had one. We knew if we won, we were district champions. Man, the girls came out ready to play and we gave Hamilton about all they wanted for three quarters. As the final quarter came around, I saw us slowly start falling apart. I will say though, I was SO extremely proud of that group of girls after that game. We ended up losing 25-17, but the score does no justice of how close it really was. The game was in our favor for three quarters. It’s all about growing and maturing as far as basketball goes in games like these. I wish this game would have been at home, but that’s just how it goes in basketball too. They fought their hearts out this game, and really all season long.I am so proud of these young ladies and what they accomplished this year. Like I said before, they are going to do some amazing things, as they get older. As I told them after one of the last games, they can follow in some older ones footsteps and take San Saba back to Austin before they graduate if they keep playing and stay together. I truly believe that San Saba will be in for another ride of their lives in the upcoming future! GO DILLOS!!!