The going got tough for the Tascosa Lady Rebels against the Lubbock Monterey Lady Plainsmen on Wednesday night, but that’s exactly what they were expecting.
That was the biggest difference between what happened in the Tascosa Activity Center and the first time the two teams played in District 3-5A this season. This time, the Lady Rebels were the tough who got going.
Tascosa led almost the entire game in a matchup between top 20 teams, but the Lady Rebels had to show some grit to hang on and beat Monterey 51-45. The win kept the Lady Rebels (26-2, 11-1 in 3-5A) alone in first place in the middle of a challenging week.
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Midway through the fourth quarter, the game appeared to be slipping away from Tascosa, which led by as many as 10 points in the period. But they came up bnig defensively late and put the game away when it counted.
“You can preach toughness all day to the kids, but until they’re in this environment and they experience these things you don’t know what’s going to happen,” first-year Tascosa coach Zac Tabor said. “That’s the only way you can prove it. The game wasn’t perfect in the fourth quarter. We missed some free throws and were spotty with the ball at times but I felt we did a good job of really steadying the ship and going and getting the win in the end.”
The biggest challenge facing the No. 6 Lady Rebels was how to contain Monterey’s Ambrosia Cole, one of the area’s best players. She carried the No. 16 Lady Plainsmen (21-9, 10-3) with a game-high 28 points, but didn’t get much help, as no other Monterey player scored more than seven.
Contrast that with the first meeting between the two teams in Lubbock in December, which Monterey won 71-54. It was a rare blot on Tascosa’s record but the Lady Rebels haven’t lost since.
Monterey’s only lead came when Cole hit a 3-pointer midway through the first quarter to give the Lady Plainsmen a 10-9 lead. That pretty much set Monterey’s offensive tone, as Cole had 10 of her team’s 12 points in the first quarter.
The Lady Rebels, though were far more balanced offensively with more than one focal player each posession, thanks to their three top seniors. Devaeh Johnson led the Lady Rebels with 16 points, 11 of them in the first half to spark them to a 26-23 halftime lead. Nic’Kiyah Fisher had 12 points, and Kenzee Dickson scored 11, including all nine of Tascosa’s fourth quarter points.
“I think it comes back to their experience and I’m kind of a broken record at this point in talking about an experienced team but it does come back to that,” Tabor said. “They’ve been in a lot of big games together. The trend for us in these games is Kenzee gets aggressive in the fourth and everybody else really takes care of the ball. I’m really proud of the way we finished.”
Tascosa led by as many as 13 in the third quarter, but Monterey stuck around the whole way, and when Emree Smith hit a 3-pointer for her only points of the game, the Lady Plainsmen had cut the lead to 47-45 in the final two minutes. However, Dickson scored on a drive to the basket and hit a pair of free throws to ice the game.
The Lady Rebels have little time to enjoy the win, as Friday they head to a rematch with traditional rival No. 17 Amarillo High at AHS. It’s a game which always means something.
“They’re the gold star of the Panhandle,” Tabor said of the Lady Sandies. “We’ll come back (Thursday) to prepare and we’ll try to go over there and get a big win. It’s definitely not going to be easy. We’ve got to have a short memory on this one.”