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 girls win district opener

It was the best quarter the Central High School girls basketball team had played all season.

It might have been the best quarter that Rachel Robinson has ever played.

Together, it amounted to an remarkably dominant finish for the Lady Cats in an otherwise tight game Tuesday night as they downed Odessa High 54-40 in the District 2-5A opener for both teams.

OHS had actually headed into the fourth quarter with a 35-34 lead.

Then Robinson and the Lady Cats (4-5, 1-0) unleashed some fury, outscoring the Lady Bronchos 20-5 over the game's final eight minutes.

Coming off the bench, Robinson hadn't scored in the game to that point, but she scored 11 in the final period, including back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers in the quarter's first two minutes.

In the blink of an eye, Central was suddenly up by seven points in a game in which it had mostly trailed throughout.

"It was pretty exciting," Robinson said.

"To come off the bench like that and light it up was exactly what we needed," said Central head coach Jan Wakefield.

There was something even more important for the Lady Cats in that final quarter than just Robinson's long-range heroics.

"The key was that we didn't turn the ball over," Wakefield said. "We kept shooting ourselves in the foot in the first half and missed some baskets we needed to make. It all fell together there in the fourth quarter. That's how we're capable of playing."

Mercedes Lopez also came up big in that fourth quarter, scoring five of her 11 points in that period.

"Coach said this was our home, our house," Lopez said. "We played hard and got it done."

Lady Cat Chelsea Howard also had a big night with nine points, and Central freshman Katie Wohleking was a force inside and scored eight off the bench.

OHS (3-2, 0-1) was led by Alisha Willis' 10 points.

"It was a great team effort," Wakefield said.

And it was a win that's especially important for the confidence level of an inexperienced Lady Cats team that returns just two letterwinners from last year's playoff team.

The Central girls had been banged up literally and figuratively over the weekend in the Killeen tournament as they lost four of six games, and Robinson came home having bitten through her bottom lip during the final tourney game.

It was the Lady Cats who did the bashing Tuesday.

"We gained a lot of experience in this last tournament," said Wakefield, whose team won't play again until next Tuesday at Permian. "We got beat up. We learned a lot, and I think we learned how to step up when we needed to."

Central girls 54, Odessa High 40