It wasn’t their most crisp performance of the young season, but the Brownwood Lady Lions remained undefeated nonetheless, disposing of the Sweetwater Mustangs, 48-31, Tuesday night at Warren Gym for their third straight home victory to open the 2023-24 campaign.
The Lady Lions (3-0) led Sweetwater (2-2) throughout, owning a 12-6 advantage after one quarter, a 25-12 cushion at halftime, while carrying a 33-18 edge into the final quarter.
Brownwood shot a season-low 31 percent (17 of 55) from the floor and 21 percent (5 of 23) on three-pointers, but hit 64 percent (9 of 24) of its free throws, grabbed 33 rebounds and forced 25 turnovers with 18 coming on steals.
“We came out very flat,” said Lady Lions 15th-year head coach Heather Hohertz. “We had a slow start getting going and it took us a while to get our first basket. I told them in the locker room we have to make sure our mindset is right and we’re coming out on top no matter who we’re playing. I’m happy with the win, but not with the way we came out and the energy we played with. We have to take that to a higher level.”
Icess Hall led the Lady Lions with 13 points trailed by Hannah Deen with 9, Miranda Northcutt and Trinity Roberts with 8 apiece, Kimber Green with 5, Rylie Schaffer with 3, and Olivia Ringer with 2 points.
Hohertz rotated more of this season’s varsity newcomers into the game at early portions of the contest, gaining them valuable crunch time experience in preparation for the regular season’s lengthy grind.
“You never know what might happen so it’s good to get some experience early on, and I thought everybody contributed,” Hohertz said.
For Sweetwater, Aunisti Griffin led the way with12 points while no other Lady Mustang scored more than 4 points. The 31 points yielded serves as the fewest allowed by Brownwood in a game this season.
“I thought our defense at times was really good, but at times we took some bad angles and fouled them and let them get to the free throw line,” Hohertz said. “We only gave up 31 points, but I would have liked that to have been a little less.”
The Lady Lions have a busy weekend in store as they will compete in the Hamilton tournament Thursday through Saturday, their first games away from Warren Gym this season.
“It’s going to be a three-day weekend with four games and our mindset is to play each play and be ready to go each game,” Hohertz said. “We have a tough Lampasas team to start the tournament and follow that up with Hamilton and they have some big girls. We follow up with one game on Friday and one game on Saturday. I want to see consistency and playing at a high level every time we step on the court.”