By BRAD KEITH
TheFlashToday.com
TOLAR (February 21, 2017) — For the third time in five seasons, Stephenville is among the final 16 girls teams standing in its classification.
The No. 10 Honeybees (27-6) had to fight off a nine-point second half deficit, finally taking the lead on a driving basket through a foul by Jayci Morton, then withstanding a tying 3-point try by Glen Rose (24-8) in the final seconds of a 35-32 Region I-4A quarterfinal at Tolar High School Tuesday.
Stephenville meets Levelland in a Region I-4A semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Friday, with the winner advancing to the regional championship Saturday, all at Lubbock Christian University. Levelland defeated Bushland Tuesday, 64-55.
Glen Rose scored just one point on a free throw in the fourth quarter, while Stephenville used a 12-0 second half run to secure its first trip to the regional tournament since 2014. It was the eighth straight regional quarterfinal appearance by the Honeybees, and that experience showed down the stretch.
Morton’s runner made it 33-31 and extended Stephenville’s decisive run to ten straight points with 1:32 remaining. She missed the free throw, but the Honeybees did what they do best – they continued to earn defensive stops.
Stephenville’s 19th turnover on a traveling violation gave Glen Rose the ball trailing by just two, but a player control foul on a hard drive to the bucket put it back into the hands of the Honeybees with 29 seconds left.
Payton Wall was fouled seven seconds later and made the biggest free throws of the night, pushing the Stephenville lead to 35-31.
Glen Rose guard Hailey Ibarra was fouled and hit the first free throw with 13.8 seconds remaining. She missed the second following a Stephenville timeout, and Hailey Martin was quickly fouled for Stephenville.
Martin missed the front end of the 1-and-1, and Glen Rose collected the board and one last gasp of life, calling timeout in the front court with 5.9 seconds left.
A long inbound pass gave Jaylan Evans an attempt at a tying left-wing 3-pointer over the outstretched arms of Morton, but it was an airball and a put back attempt underneath caromed off. Martin grabbed the last board of the night and dribbled into the corner as time expired and the Stephenville celebration began.
It’s the third time Stephenville has defeated Glen Rose, but the Lady Tigers proved a much more difficult hurdle to overcome than in the pair of 12-point Honeybee wins in 8-4A district play.
“It’s hard to play someone three times, especially when its a talented team that is so well coached,” said Stephenville head coach Alan Thorpe, who led the Bees to the regional final in 2013 and regional semifinals in 2014. “That team has gotten better every game, and you could tell they were well prepared for everything we threw at them offensively.”
Glen Rose grabbed its largest lead of 26-17, almost three minutes into the third quarter on a rebound and put back by Ally Andress.
Stephenville pulled within five on a bucket in the paint by Liz Pack and a driving floater by Jordan Carter.
Glen Rose answered right back, leading 31-23 following an old-fashioned 3-point play by Andress, but with 41 seconds remaining in the third, it proved to be the final Lady Tiger field goal of the game.
And their final one of the season, too.
Stephenville began its decisive run with a 3 by freshman guard Madison Carter that trimmed its deficit to 31-26 entering the fourth, then dominated the final stanza.
Morton hit a free throw then turned an offensive rebound into an easy put back to pull Stephenville within two, and the Bees tied it up on a Tesslie Baker layup off a nifty assist by Jordan Carter with 3:21 left.
The defensive efforts that dominated the game took over for much of the next two minutes, before Morton made the final field goal of the gamer either team, penetrating the paint before her crucial go-ahead bucket.
“We were running dribble drive, which is our pass and drive offense,” explained Morton, a sophomore averaging 12 points in the playoffs. “Our team did a great job of rotating the ball and it cleared the lane up for me to take it in.”
Thorpe and staff made the tough decision to go back to the “dribble-drive” offense after struggling with it early on.
“In the first half they were taking our dribble drive away. They really worked on that a lot, you could tell, and they did a good job against it in the first half,” Thorpe explained. “They got us into foul trouble taking charge calls, so we got out of it. In the second half, when they started getting into foul trouble, too, we got back into it so we could go right at them.”
Morton and Wall scored seven each for Stephenville. Martin and Baker each added five, Jordan Carter and Pack had four each and Madi Carter three.
“Our coaches told us beating a good team three times is hard, and it was, but we fought back and I know we’re ready for Friday,” Morton said. “It was really rough in the first half, and we were all pretty discouraged at halftime, but our coaches came in there and encouraged us and got us ready for the second half.”
Just in time to punch their ticket to the regional tournament.
“Way cool,” said Thorpe of heading back to Lubbock. “It’s a great experience for these kids and I’m really proud of them because they had to earn it the hard way.”
Glen Rose grabbed the early momentum with a 13-0 run following six straight Honeybee points to start the game. A 3-pointer by Evans began the run and ended the Honeybees’ strong start. It also marked the last time the Bees looked strong at all until well into the second half.
Buckets in the paint by Andress and Logan Smith as well as free throws by Presley Grace made it 11-straight points before Ibarra put an exclamation point on the run with a steal and breakaway two that sent the Lady Tigers into the second quarter with a 13-6 lead.
The next eight minutes followed a similar script, beginning with Stephenville scoring the first five points on a Martin jumper inside off an assist by Baker, who then stole the ball and went coast-to-coast to score through contact before adding the free throw for a 5-point run that cut the deficit to 13-11.
It was 15-13 before the next Glen Rose run, this one covering seven straight points. Ibarra scored four and Sydney Lozier buried a triple for an eight-point Lady Tiger lead with 1:22 left in the half.
A Martin free throw trimmed Stephenville’s deficit to 22-14 and gave her a team-leading five at intermission.
The 6-0 start by the Bees came a jumper by Wall, free throws by Martin and a runner by Morton just more than two minutes into the game. Seven minutes and nine seconds would go by before Stephenville scored again.
Andress and Smith led all scorers with nine and eight for Glen Rose. Ibarra added seven, Evans three, Lozier three and Grace two.
TheFlashToday.com phtos by RUSSELL HUFFMAN
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