Hannah Deen banked in a go-ahead driving bucket with 19 seconds left, and the defense held on down the stretch as the Brownwood Lady Lions upended the rival Stephenville Honeybees, 37-36, Tuesday night at Warren Gym to clinch their 15th postseason berth in the last 16 seasons.
“What a battle,” said Lady Lions head coach Heather Hohertz. “I’m just proud of my kids for finding a way. Right when we needed a bucket there Hannah stepped up after having a three hit in her face and she came back down and found a way to finish on a difficult shot. My kids are competitors and you can see that. They’re fighters and they competed their tails off.”
The Lady Lions (22-10, 4-4) – who dropped a 43-31 District 6-4A decision at Stephenville (16-15, 5-3) back on Jan. 10 despite leading 22-15 at halftime – trailed 27-26 heading into the final period of the rematch.
There, Brownwood scored the first six points of the quarter on a bucket and a pair of free throws from Trinity Roberts, who scored a game-high 18 points, and two more free throws from Jade Morin, to grab a 32-27 advantage with 5:37 remaining.
Stephenville then answered with a pair of three-pointers from Brinley Hall, recapturing a 33-32 edge with 2:24 to go.
Roberts fired back in the paint for Brownwood at the 2:03 mark, giving the lead back to the Lady Lions, 34-33. Icess Hall later sank one of two free throws to increase the advantage to 35-33 with 1:27 left on the clock.
“When we needed a bucket tonight, how big was Trin down low,” Hohertz said. “Going into the first game I thought she was going to be a mismatch for them no matter who guarded her. She stayed on the three-point line the first game and I showed her on film that I needed her to get down on the block and she responded well and stepped up big.”
With 50 seconds left, the Honeybees again struck from long range as Brooklyn Hardin knocked down the go-ahead trey for a 36-35 Stephenville advantage.
On Brownwood’s ensuing trip down the floor, Roberts came up empty inside, but Morin yanked down the offensive rebound and dished to a charging Deen, who banked in what turned out to be the winning shot.
On the other end, despite calling a pair of timeouts, Stephenville was unable to get a good look at a final shot against Brownwood’s swarming defense.
The Lady Lions led 10-6 after one quarter, the Honeybees owned a 20-18 advantage at the break, and Stephenville carried its one-point advantage into the final eight minutes.
“The first half was pretty rough there, there wasn’t a lot of fouls called either way,” Hohertz said. “I just told them to hang tough, roll up your sleeves and get dirty and go to work and they came out in the second half and did just that.”
Along with the 18 points from Roberts, Deen finished with seven, Icess Hall tacked on five, Morin contributed four, Nylah Hall chipped in two points and Kate Tindol sank a free throw, as the Lady Lions were 13 of 16 (81 percent) from the charity stripe, including 5 of 6 in the fourth quarter.
Stephenville received 10 points from Lucy Espinosa and nine points each from Hall and Hardin.
“I was tremendously pleased with the way Jade guarded the Hall girl,” Hohertz said. “She killed us last game and I thought Jade did a tremendous job on her.”
The playoff-bound Lady Lions are back in action at Graham (11-19, 1-7) – which lost to No. 18 Brock (21-8, 6-2) by a 46-26 count Tuesday – at 5:45 p.m. Friday.