Marble Falls girls basketball ends Llano tourney with wins

CAPTION: Marble Falls seniors Caity Johnson (left) and Kylie Roberts (right) sandwich Llano junior Peyton Parrish for the ball. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High School girls basketball team is on a two-game winning streak thanks to winning its final two contests of the Deer Capital Classic hosted by Llano High School Dec. 5-7.

They finished the event 2-2.

The win against Brady, which won District 5-3A the last two years, illustrated the kind of team the Lady Mustangs can be.

After scoring a total of six points the first half, senior forward Kylie Roberts and junior center Leslie Reynoso led the charge in the third period.

Marble Falls scored 21 points during that eight-minute stanza with Roberts dropping in eight points and Reynoso adding 10. They scored their points from half-court sets, fast breaks and offensive rebounds.

Roberts was named to the all-tournament team.

“We started playing our best basketball,” head coach Adley Canales said. “They are our two best rebounders by far. They had putback opportunities, and we were running pretty well in transition. We were doing a good job of rewarding them for running. In one-on-one situations, we feel confident in our abilities. We were there to change it up.”

Canales credited a change of mentality for the output.

“They played free,” he said. “They’re not trying to do too much. They took what the other team was giving us. We tell them that we’d rather you make a mistake trying to score instead of not scoring.”

Marble Falls ended the tournament with a 39-34 victory against Coleman Dec. 7.

What encouraged coaches was the commitment the Lady Mustangs showed on both ends of the floor. They scored seven points in the first quarter, nine in the second, 13 in the third, and 10 in the final stanza.

Meanwhile, Marble Falls continued to play the stingy defense that held the Lady Cats to under 35 points, which is always the goal.

There’s no question that seeing the Lady Mustangs score points — where they are closer to 40 as opposed to 20 — was the highlight of this tournament.

“If they’re timid and not confident in their shooting, they won’t shoot it,” Canales said. “The law of averages says the more shots you get up, the better chance you have of winning. Against (Killeen) Harker Heights, we had a better field goal percentage. But they had 20 more shots against us.”

The Lady Knights prevailed 38-21 Dec. 3.

To begin the tournament, the Lady Mustangs lost to Bangs 38-33 and to Llano 40-20, both on Dec. 5.

The loss to the Lady Jackets was especially disheartening. After playing well to begin the tournament, the two teams returned to the court for the night cap. Llano led 7-5 after the first quarter and shut out the Lady Mustangs in the second stanza. And though the Lady Jackets outscored Marble Falls in every quarter by a possession, it’s difficult to overcome a period where one team scores 12 points and the other doesn’t score one.

“I feel like we got a lot of shots today,” Canales said. “They just weren’t falling. We just got to get to work on it and keep improving. Our defense was there. The goal was to keep teams at 40 points or under.”

In the ideal world, if the Lady Mustangs are finding it difficult to score, their defense can be a way to jumpstart the offense because they can push the pace and outrun opponents from one end to the other. And Canales acknowledged that “it’s no fun to play defense on one end” and not get the reward of scoring a basket on the other end.

“Our defense makes our offense go,” Canales said. “We have to work the ball. Us learning and growing — that’s what tournaments are for. We’re seeing a lot of different teams and a lot of different styles.”

Marble Falls welcomes Llano Tuesday, Dec. 10, with the subvarsities playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity competing at 6:30 p.m.

CAPTION: Marble Falls junior center Leslie Reynoso played well to end the Deer Capital Classic. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro