Amarillo High dominates Tascosa to clinch 3-5A playoff berth

It couldn’t have been a more appropriate manner for the Amarillo High Sandies to punch their ticket to the postseason than the way they did it Friday night.

Living up to coach Jason Pillion’s beloved blueprint of taking offense where they can find it and throttling the other team defensively, the Sandies got back into a familiar position at the Tascosa Activity Center. Amarillo High never trailed in cruising to a 52-28 victory over Tascosa which clinched a playoff spot from District 3-5A.

The No. 15 Sandies (26-5, 12-0 in district) are hardly surprising anybody with their status, as a quick glance at the numbers would suggest. Beating their crosstown rival to punch their ticket to the postseason again was as symbolic as anything.

“I thought it was a great win,” Pillion said. “I was extremely concerned because I know (Tascosa) coach (Steve) Jackson and I know how he leads and gets his team to respond and they came off a tough one on Tuesday (a 69-62 loss at Lubbock Monterey)  and I knew they’d be ready to go. I thought our start was extremely important to handle what they came in with. I thought we took care of the basketball well for 32 minutes.”

The Sandies wasted no time in jumping on Tascosa (17-9, 7-4), taking a 14-4 lead in the first quarter. They had five players score in the opening period and took control quickly.

Amarillo High didn’t let up in the second quarter in going up by as many as 16 points. Zach Brown carried the load offensively, scoring 12 in the first half as the Sandies went up 26-13 at halftime.

“The crowd was waiting to explode but I thought we took the crowd out of it early,” Pillion said. “We made things hard for them and that’s important.”

Tascosa did show signs of making it a game late in the first half. Jonas Morrow ended the first half by banking in a 3-pointer which looked like it gave the Rebels some momentum. They cut the lead to 29-20 and seemed primed to at least make things interesting.

However, Amarillo High closed the third quarter with 11 straight points, capped by a 3-pointer from Will Jennings which made it 40-20 and made the fourth quarter merely academic.

Tascosa struggled all night offensively, as not a single Rebel scored in double digits. That’s a regular feature in Amarillo High game scripts.

“Sometimes we had stretches where we went a little bit dry offensively but we were still able to kind of hold the line because of what we did defensively,” Pillion said. “That’s just kind of the m.o. of this team. They really get down and grind and make you work and don’t give up a lot of easy stuff.”

The offensive numbers reflect that, as Brown was the only scorer on either team in double figures with 17 points. Cam Goodman led Tascosa with eight points.