Burnet girls basketball wins area playoff game against Houston Wheatley
CAPTION: The Burnet Lady Dawgs celebrate winning a gold trophy by beating Houston Wheatley in the area round of the postseason. Courtesy photo
The Burnet High School girls basketball team beat Houston Wheatley 62-28 Feb. 16 in the area round of the Class 4A playoffs.
Next up is defending state champion Waco La Vega in the regional quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, at Killeen High School. Burnet is the visiting team. Adults pay $7 and students pay $5. There are no pre-sale tickets.
The Lady Dawgs (29-8, 7-1 District 24-4A champions) outscored the Lady Wildcats 10-3 in the opening quarter. They dropped in 15 points in the second, 21 in the third, and 16 in the final stanza.
“It’s understandable at times that a little bit of the start of the game is a slow start,” head coach Rick Gates said. “The first 4 minutes were kind of sloppy. We couldn’t find our way offensively. We kind of got going and saw some baskets go in, and we won every quarter and pushed the lead out. The offense got going the more we played. “
Wheatley’s guards led the Wildcats, and Burnet coaches believed the Lady Dawgs had mismatches on the inside that favored their team. So they decided to run the offense through senior center Zaria Solis and senior athlete MaeSyn Gay.
“Our post play is superior to theirs,” Gates said. “We’re getting the ball on the inside on every possession. We did a really good job of doing that. We worked that ball inside, and we got a lot of our points there.”
Solis scored 19 of her game-high 23 points in the second half. Gay added 14, while junior center Cydney Robison dropped in 7, junior forward Sierra Schaefer and junior guard Sydney Lough contributed 6, sophomore guard Journey Denton added 4, and senior forward Alexis Leatherwood and sophomore forward Wrigley Mulhollan each finished with 1.
Meanwhile, Wheatley scored 7 in the second quarter, 12 in the third period, and 6 in the fourth.
That illustrates Lady Dawgs kept their poise on defense for 32 minutes. The coach said he was pleased with how they dedicated themselves to making Wheatley uncomfortable.
“The girls did a really good job,” he said. “I was really happy with the defensive effort. They’ve done a great job on defense. They commit to it, they take pride in it. Obviously, that’s where you start. Offense comes and goes. But you can come out and play great defense.”
Jamie Solomon was the only Wheatley player in double figures with 13.
The big lead allowed Gates to substitute freely.
“As we got farther into our game, I was able to rest our starters a little bit and give our subs some good playing time,” he said. “We took advantage of that.”
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