Amarillo High grinds out win over rival Tascosa to stay unbeaten in District 3-5A

For round one in the crosstown rivalry for 2024-25, the Amarillo High Sandies didn’t just emerge with city bragging rights Tuesday night.

In a fight for at least a share of the early District 3-5A lead at the Amarillo High Activity Center, Amarillo High and Tascosa squared off in a typically hard-fought contest in the first of their two district meetings. It was close most of the way, but Amarillo High was in control, cruising to a 52-41 victory to stay unbeaten and tied with Lubbock Coper for the district lead.

Offense was at a premium most of the evening in front of a spirited crowd which seemed to be split down the middle in terms of loyalty. What the game may have lacked in artistic value it made up for in competitive spirit.

Veteran AHS coach Jason Pillion, who’s coached in seemingly countless AHS-Tascosa clashes, didn’t anticipate anything different, as his No. 20 Sandies improved to 15-3 and 4-0 in district.

“It’s exactly what I expected,” Pillion said. “It’s the one thing I said to them I was most proud of is I felt like we took a good punch in the first half. (Tascosa) guarded us and hit some big shots every time it looked like we might try to open something up. I felt like we showed a lot of grit that second half and kind of won a slugfest.”

Tascosa (10-5, 2-1) got the upper hand out of the box as Hawk Farris and Jae Palacios hit consecutive 3-pointers to open the game and the Rebels jumped out to a 6-0 lead. That was the biggest advantage for Tascosa.

The two teams exchanged leads until about midway through the second quarter, when the Sandies went up by as many as seven points and led 31-27 at halftime. Tascosa stayed close by hitting four 3-pointers in the second quarter.

Neither team distinguished itself offensively in the second half, but it was particularly a struggle for the Rebels. Tascosa scored only seven points in each of the final two quarters despite getting some fairly good looks at the basket.

Amarillo High didn’t exactly make things easy for the Rebels at that end of the court.

“We got some big loose balls and some big rebounds,” Pillion said. “We maintained some possessions when the ball got loose and we got it back. There were some rebounds where we didn’t get them, but we were able to tip them and keep them alive for someone else to get them.”

While it wasn’t a stellar offensive night for either team, Creed Barnes came alive to lead the Sandies. Barnes scored seven points each in the second and third quarters to carry Amarillo High and finished with a game-high 18 points.

“When he’s shooting it that opens up a lot of other things for him,” Pillion said of Barnes. “I thought more than him hitting shots, he was extremely active. He’s athletic and he’s smart and I felt like his energy was extremely high tonight.”

Barnes took up some of the slack for Zach Brown, Amarillo High’s leading scorer who was held in check a good chunk of the night. Brown still finished with 15 points.

Farris was Tascosa’s lone scorer in double digits with 16 points.