SA Times - Coming out of every huddle, the Ballinger High School girls basketball team yells "Austin," a not-so-subtle hint at where the Lady Bearcats plan on ending their season. They're playing like they plan to be at the state tournament, too. Showing why they are the No. 6-ranked Class 2A team in the state, the Lady Bearcats beat Central 65-58 Tuesday night as four players reached double figures, led by 17 from Tara Williams.
The win improved Ballinger's record to 9-1, with the only loss coming to state-ranked 4A power Lubbock Estacado. Even as the Lady Bearcats were celebrating another win, no Central players were hanging their heads. "Nobody ever wants to lose, but I think we all stepped up our game a lot," said Central post Sam Graves, who scored a game-high 21 points. "It doesn't feel like a loss at all. We know we can contend with those state-ranked teams now. It was good."
The difference in the game proved to be the 10-point lead Ballinger took in the first quarter. It was a lead the Bearcats never fully lost, though Central (7-2) did trim the margin to just five with 1:58 left in the game on a three-point play by Graves. "We fought tooth and nail," said Central head coach Jan Wakefield, whose team plays Thursday in the Hays Tournament. "We spotted them 10 to 12 points and kept fighting back. There would have been times in the past when we might have laid down and not fought as hard, but this group is never going to do that. They really rose to the occasion."
But Ballinger's speed and outside shooting (the Bearcats made 10 3-pointers to Central's two) were too much. In addition to Williams' heroics, Taylor Pelzel and Tara King both scored 14 and Kiera Soderwall added 11 for Ballinger. "They are just so quick and athletic," Wakefield said. "It's hard to simulate that in practice. They were by far the best team we played, but we did some good things." A lot of those good things happened near the basket, where Central had a size advantage anyway. They really had one when Ballinger's two inside threats (Soderwall and Jessica Willingham) got in early foul trouble. "Their post players are huge, and we're small compared to them," Ballinger head coach Tri Danley said. "We wanted to pressure them, pick up the tempo so maybe they couldn't get it inside as much. We wanted to make them run."
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't, as Central adjusted well. In addition to Graves' monster game, Central's Lyric Ross scored 12 and Ashley Dyches had 10 with the bulk of that duo's points coming on inside looks and free throws. Brooke Bailey added nine points.