Sealy falls in round-two opener

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Sealy falls in round-two opener

Thu, 01/28/2021 - 10:08
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Lady Tigers hit home stretch with four games remaining

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The Sealy Lady Tiger basketball squad opened the second round of district play with a 54-39 loss to the Royal Lady Falcons last Friday evening at home.

The loss dropped Sealy to 1-5 within District 24-4A with only four games remaining in the regular season. This week, the Lady Tigers hosted Bellville on Wednesday and will travel to Wharton on Saturday after a shortage of referees delayed the regularly scheduled Tuesday and Friday matchups.

Still, Sealy head girls’ basketball coach Anthony Branch is pleased with the effort the team is putting in at practice and looked forward to taking advantage of what time he has remaining with the elder members of the team playing their final seasons.

“Just trying to enjoy it, keep trying to get better and love on them; we’ve got two weeks to get better,” Branch said Friday night.

Although the season is nearing its terminal end, the head coach said that when the season was beginning, nobody was quite sure how much of the season would be completed with the COVID-19 pandemic lingering.

“Earlier in the year, we didn’t know if we were going to get basketball but it looks like we’re going to get this season in and it’s nice because the seniors will get to have that,” Branch said. “Regardless of what happens, at least they can say, ‘I got to play,’ compared to the softball and track athletes who were seniors and had a chance to win a state championship last year and it went out the window.”

Despite a slow first half that saw the Lady Tigers trailing 24-16 at the halftime intermission last Friday, the hosts cut the deficit to only two points in the third quarter although Branch said not many adjustments were made in the locker room.

“What we do is what we do, they were running the dribble weave and there were sometimes that we were getting caught on defense and gave 11 (Takeiyah Price) the shot,” Branch said. “It was between (her) and 0 (Jade Abernathy) so I told Brylie (Bond) and Heaven (Hernandez) to just switch that then we won’t give up that shot.”

Down the stretch, however, Branch said the correct passes weren’t made and shots didn’t fall which led to the visitors’ lead being extended. The Lady Falcons eventually secured a win that moved them to 5-1 in district play, good enough for the firstplace spot entering this week.

The head coach said there were plenty of solid performances but he singled out senior Megan Schaaf who finished with six rebounds, five assists, four points, drew three charging fouls and added a steal after she missed the previous game due to injury.

“The effort she gave – she didn’t have to play (tonight),” Branch said. “I admire her toughness for her to come in and just do it. A lot of high praise and she knows how I feel about her; I truly love her, she means a lot to me as a coach and I hate that I won’t have her next year so I’m just going to try to enjoy the last two weeks with her.”

On the other end, someone he will have returning next year is junior Ariel Gonzales who came in for an injured sophomore Jasmyne Joiner and collected a team second-best eight points to go along with four rebounds.

It was senior Heaven Hernandez who led the team in scoring with nine points and added two rebounds and two steals. Classmate Brylie Bond also finished with eight points and pulled down three rebounds, recorded two assists, grabbed a steal and drew a charging foul.

Junior Evelyn Harrington finished with six points, a teamhigh nine rebounds, five assists and two steals. Juniors Julia Jurecka and Darrel’Nae Johnson both registered two points where Jurecka also recorded four rebounds.