After a rocky performance at the Lorena tournament over the weekend, the Brownwood Lady Lions returned to the win column and surpassed last season’s total number of victories with a 51-31 triumph over the Coleman Bluekatts Tuesday night at Warren Gym.
“I give credit to Coleman,” said Lady Lions 13th-year head coach Heather Hohertz, whose team improved to 10-5 on the season after posting a 9-15 mark a year ago. “They’re came in, they’re a young team but they played really hard. They gave us some looks that challenged us and I thought we came out flat, especially in the second quarter. They played harder than we did at times, and it felt like we didn’t play hard until the fourth quarter. We turned it on there and started playing to our ability and started knocking down some shots which we struggled with the last four games, and the first three quarters tonight.”
The Lady Lions led Coleman (3-5) by a 12-6 count after one quarter, 23-16 at halftime, and 34-24 through three frames. Coleman closed the gap to eight points, 36-28, on a bucket by Katy Elder with 6:42 left, but the Lady Lions responded with 13 consecutive points to open a 49-28 edge with 2:58 remaining.
The surge began with a bucket in the paint by Jaylen Savage, who scored nine of her game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter for Brownwood. Savage added five more points during the run, Kassidy Wooten knocked down a three-pointer, Tessa Goodwin chipped in a bucket and Mady Pyle sank a free throw.
“I was really pleased with our offensive rebounding and I thought we really haven’t been very good at that lately,” Hohertz said. “Our transition looked pretty good at times, but I’d like it to be a little better. At times we stood there on defense and watched shots go up. We have to get better at that, we can’t take plays off.”
Along with Savage, Goodwin and Pyle finished in double figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Wooten added three points and Kynslee Walker, Lilly Brasher, Dakota Simpson, and Briana Castaneda chipped in two points apiece.
“We were just trying to find somebody to go out there and play with a purpose and play hard,” said Hohertz, who turned to the reserves more than usual in Tuesday’s contest. “I was giving everybody a chance to go out there and prove what they have. We’re just trying to find the pieces to step up and win some basketball games.”
Coleman was led by Elder with 12 points, Kamyn Hale with eight, Carlie Tibbetts with four, Addi Cox and Peyton Gober with three each and Alana Young with one point.
The Lady Lions are back in action at 6:30 p.m. Friday as they welcome Goldthwaite.
[Story, photo courtesy of Derrick Stuckly / BrownwoodNews.com]