Burnet girls basketball goes 2-2 at tourney, ready for district

The Burnet High School girls basketball team went 2-2 at the Leander Glenn tournament Dec. 28-29.

The Lady Dawgs (19-7) beat Leander High 62-12 and Copperas Cove 53-39 and lost to Glenn 55-33 and Leander Vandegrift 52-38.

“The two losses were to really good teams,” head coach Rick Gates said. “Glenn is a top 10 team in Class 5A, and they’re just really, really good.”

The Lady Grizzlies (22-1 overall, 4-0 District 25-5A) led 13-11 after the first quarter, 36-19 at the half, and 49-24 after three periods. They were paced by junior Soma Okolo, who stands 6 feet and 3 inches, who had 18 points, and freshman point guard Elizabeth Lee, who added 15. Both are expected to sign with Division I programs. Glenn had 20 rebounds, 11 assists, 22 steals and 2 blocks.

“(Okolo) can step out and shoot the 3-pointer,” Gates said.

Burnet junior guard Sydney Lough dropped in 10 points followed by junior forward Sierra Schaefer and senior center Zaria Solis with 8 apiece, junior center Cydney Robison and senior guard and forward MaeSyn Gay had 2 apiece, and senior forward Alexis Leatherwood scored 1. Burnet had 22 rebounds, 10 assists, 5 steals and a block.

A strong second half propelled Burnet to the win against Copperas Cove. Burnet outscored Copperas Cove 17-6 in the third quarter for a 40-31 lead and added 13 more points in the fourth to ensure the victory. Cove had 34 rebounds, 6 assists and 6 steals. Burnet had 32 rebounds, 13 assists, 11 steals and 2 blocks.

Solis scored 17 followed by Lough with 16, Schaffer and Robison each added 5, Denton and Mulhollan scored 4 apiece, and Leatherwood finished with 2.

Vandegrift took a 10-6 lead after the first period, 26-17 at the half, and 44-27 after three periods. Burnet outscored the Lady Vipers 11-8 in the final stanza. Vandegrift freshman guard Saania Khawaja led with 19 points followed by freshman guard Maddie Broxterman with 15. The Lady Vipers had 27 rebounds, 5 assists and 11 steals.

Burnet had 27 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals and a block. Solis scored 16 points, while Lough had 11, Schafer scored 8, and Denton had 3.

“We did some good things,” Gates said. “We cut it to (an) eight(-point deficit) a couple of times. If we had one more shot to go down, we put pressure on them. They have some really good guards, two freshman guards who played well and led them in scoring.”

The Lady Dawgs took a 17-4 lead against Leander and never looked back. They limited the Lady Lions to 5 points in the third period and 3 in the fourth. Leander had 20 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals and a block.

Burnet had 33 rebounds, 23 assists, 14 steals and 4 blocks. Schaffer dropped in 17 points followed by Lough with 11, Solis with 10, Leatherwood added 8, Denton scored 6, Robison and Gay added 4 each, and Mulhollan finished with 2.

“We shot lights out,” the coach said. “They had some good athletes. That was a good game for us.”

Gates called for a Dec. 27 practice after taking a few days off to enjoy the Christmas holiday. Coaches use holiday tournaments to get their athletes back into game shape. But Gates said his players looked fit and ready to play.

“I was pleased with how we came in,” he said. “We practiced and then jumped into those games. Maybe we were rusty the first half of the first game. But it didn’t take us long. Conditioning wise and running what we do, all that comes back quickly.”

Burnet now gets ready to host Marble Falls in the District 24-4A opener Friday, Jan. 5, in The Doghouse. The subvarsities play at 5 p.m. and the varsity takes the court at 6:30 p.m.

“I think our expectations are high going into district and rightly so,” Gates said. “Our girls are resolute in going out and competing and winning games in district.”

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