Tascosa beats Lady Eagles for third straight year in Tatum Tough Tournament

No one who’s followed local girls basketball at all for the last four decades would expect anybody to upstage the Canyon Lady Eagles in their own gym at their own tournament, much less do it three years in a row.

The Tascosa Lady Rebels and coach Chris Sumrall didn’t get the memo.

For the third straight year, Canyon and Tascosa met at the Tatum Tough Tournament on Friday afternoon at the Joe Lombard Gymnasium. And for the third straight year, it was the visitor from Amarillo which left with the victory.

In what could be considered the tournament’s de facto championship game, although no real champion was crowned, Tascosa used a big second quarter run and held on in the second half to beat Canyon 45-41, the third straight year the Lady Rebels have beaten the Lady Eagles at their own gym in their own tournament.

“I really like coming here because you’re going to play a really good Canyon team who’s really well-coached and it mimics the District (3-5A) that we’re going to see offensively and defensively,” Sumrall said. “I just like being at home for Christmas. You can find really good teams to play up her in the Panhandle in this tournament.”

Tascosa (20-3) and Canyon (17-4) are about as good as girls teams get in the Panhandle, the state rankings bear that out. The Lady Rebels are ranked No. 6 in Class 5A and the Lady Eagles are No. 7 in Class 4A.

Friday’s game was every bit as competitive as those rankings would indicate. The big difference was how Tascosa closed the first half.

Canyon led 12-8 early in the second quarter, but the Lady Eagles didn’t score the rest of the first half. The Lady Rebels closed with a 17-0 run, as Emily Sims and Alex Carter scored five points each to give Tascosa a 25-12 halftime lead.

“We played really well through that stretch, and we were able to hang on,” Sumrall said. “We weren’t quite as sharp in the second half and give credit to Canyon. I don’t think they’re a 12 point in a half scoring team. What they did in the second half was more along the lines of what they can do, but I still feel defensively we did a pretty good job on them.”

Canyon never took the lead, but didn’t go away in the second half either. The Lady Eagles scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to pull to within 36-35, but never got over the hump.

Tascosa had one player in double figures, as Tryssa Dowd had 10 points, including eight in the second half. Three other Lady Rebels had at least eight points.

Jalee Moss had a game-high 15 points for Canyon, including 10 in the second half. Kambrie Graser added 10.

It was easily the most competitive game either team had over three days. Tascosa beat Idalou 71-40 on Thursday and crushed Perryton 60-16 before facing Canyon on Friday, and closed things out Saturday by beating Little River Academy 45-32.

Canyon opened action Thursday by routing Little River 63-40 and closed the tournament by thumping Idalou 69-42 on Saturday.

“We had a tough game against a really good Tascosa team,” Canyon coach Tate Lombard said. “Our second half of that was really strong and I thought we carried it into the Idalou game. We’ve got different kids who can score and I was proud of the way we attacked the basket today and finding the open girl whenever we did. The other three quarters (against Tascosa) is what we’re capable of and we just had a bad stretch.”

Graser had 19 points against Idalou, including five 3-pointers, while Sydnee Winfrey had 14 and Moss added 10.