Lady Dillos Hoops advances to 2A Regional Semifinals

The San Saba High School girls varsity basketball team picked up two huge postseason wins over the past week as the Lady Dillos crushed Yorktown High School in the area round and pulled away late to defeat district rival Harper High School in the regional quarterfinal.

San Saba Lady Dillos 76, Yorktown Lady Wildcats 27

San Saba scored early and scored often on Friday, February 18, with a 76-27 thrashing of Yorktown at neutral site Northside Sports Gym in San Antonio. The Lady Dillos looked superb in the first half as they outscored the Lady Wildcats 22-7 in the first quarter and put forth a dominant second quarter effort on both offense and defense with a 19-0 run to give them a 41-7 lead by halftime.

Stellar press defense by the Lady Dillos gave Yorktown fits all night as San Saba was able to cruise in the second half to a whopping 49-point win. San Saba again got a balanced scoring attack on offense and had three players score in double figures: senior forward Landri Glover with a dominant effort en route to a game-high 17 points, senior center Nojemi Martinez with eight of her 12 points scored in the third quarter, and junior guard Lexy Amthor also with 12 points of her own in the victory.

San Saba Lady Dillos 42, Harper Lady Longhorns 28

The Lady Dillos knew how to beat district rival Harper in the regular season and that translated to the postseason on Monday, February 21, as San Saba used a great second half to pull away to a 42-28 win over the Lady Longhorns at neutral site Llano High School. This was the third time San Saba has defeated Harper during the 2021-22 season as the teams tied with Mason High School for the District 29-2A championship title.

This was an extremely hardfought game by both teams as Harper came out of the gate and had control early with a 9-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. However, the Lady Dillos responded in the second quarter as freshman guard Olivia Sebastain snuck in for a layup off the glass to cut the deficit to just 9-8. After Sebastain made a clutch trey from the corner to tie things up 11-11, it was junior guard Madison Shahan who gave San Saba the lead 13-11 on a nice jumper.

The Lady Dillos extended their lead to 18-11 following a corner three-pointer from Amthor and a pull-up jumper for Glover, causing Harper to call a timeout with just over three minutes to go in the second quarter. A defensive slugfest between both teams had San Saba ahead of Harper 18-13 at halftime.

After San Saba was able to extend its lead to 27-19 by the end of the third quarter, the Lady Dillos ballooned their lead to as many as 15 points thanks to timely three pointers by Amthor and Martinez. Amthor was the game’s leading scorer with a game-high 14 points, while Shahan and Glover each had solid games with eight and seven points, respectively.

San Saba improved to 29-7 overall under first-year head coach Chris Jos after winning its third playoff game and will head to San Marcos this weekend to take part in the 2A regional semi final. The Lady Dillos will play the winner of Tuesday night’s game between Hearne High School and Weimar High School.

Be sure to check out next week’s edition of the San Saba News & Star for more updates on Dillos and Lady Dillos varsity athletics. Sports editor Andrew Salmi can be contacted via email at salmi.courier@gmail.com or by cell phone at (818) 645-1115.