Abilene Cooper   Ballinger   Killeen Tournament   Odessa High  Odessa Permian  Midland Greenwood Tournament
Midland Lee  Lubbock Coronado  Midland Greenwood  Amarillo High  Lubbock High  Copperas Cove Tournament
Amarillo Tascosa  Midland High  Lubbock Monterey  Odessa High  Lubbock High  Midland Lee  Lubbock Coronado
                        Odessa Permian  Amarillo High  *Midland High  Amarillo Tascosa  Lubbock Monterey

 

Central Can't Hang with a Tough Dawgs Team

The Midland High girls basketball team has the best first names of any team in West Texas.

There's Dreamika and MaurKeshia. Zeslie and Avian.

Just like with their names, the Lady Bulldogs can get pretty creative with a basketball, too.

With a team that was fast and big and athletic as some boys teams, MHS jumped on the Lady Cats early and often and rolled to a 67-18 victory Tuesday night.

As good as Midland (24-4, 13-3) was, at times Central (14-17, 7-9) made it all too easy for them.

"We talked about how important it was going to be to not turn over the ball and every time we did they made us pay," Central head coach Jan Wakefield said. "They are so quick and so athletic. I thought we fought hard on the boards but time and time again they came up with the ball. ... It was very frustrating on both ends."

Midland was led by Dreamika Merchant and Chelsea Hudson, who both scored 16 points.

MHS's Avian Brown had one of the best shots of the year with a half-court heave at the buzzer of the first quarter that put MHS up 23-6.

"They were just very strong and had the athletic ability to get around us easily," said Central's Ashley Fitzpatrick, who came off the bench to score four points. "And they could jump."

Central's Mercedes Lopez led the Lady Cats with seven points.

The win officially clinches a playoff spot for Midland with two games to go in the regular season.

The loss mathematically eliminated the Lady Cats from playoff contention, and while that's a negative for the Central girls, just the fact that they stayed alive in the playoff hunt until the season's final week against some tall odds says a lot.

The Lady Cats returned only two letter-winners from last year's team and then saw half the team get sidelined at one point or another this season because of illness or injuries.

Plus the realignment into the new 10-team District 2-5A really hurt Central's changes of making it to the playoffs for a third consecutive year. Eight of the ten teams in their new district made the postseason last season. If Central was in last year's district the Lady Cats would be the clear-cut second-best team.

"We've got 14 wins against quality teams. There wasn't a soft game in our schedule," Wakefield said. "We feel very good about that, but we want to end the season playing good basketball, eliminate mistakes, hit free throws, do the things we are able to control."

The Lady Cats play their home finale Saturday at 1 p.m. against Amarillo Tascosa and then close out their season next Tuesday at Lubbock Monterey. Both those teams are fighting for playoff spots.

"We want to finish as a team, and hopefully good things will happen," Fitzpatrick said.

Midland High 67, Central girls 18