Jan. 26—CLEBURNE — Even after they fell behind 8-0 in the early going against the Burleson Lady Elks, the Cleburne Lady Yellow Jackets basketball team was not fazed. Instead, the Lady Jackets countered with a 9-0 run spanning from the first and second quarters to get in front in this district contest. After the first few minutes of action, the game between Cleburne and Burleson remained closely contested throughout. In the end, the Lady Elks were able to hold a young, scrappy Cleburne squad off down the stretch en route to earning a 43-40 win inside of Jeff D. Cody Arena on Friday night.
“We’re playing five freshmen on varsity, and they play a lot of basketball, and their resilience just comes from repetition, practice and studying film,” Lady Jackets head coach Rosalind Lawrence said. “They’re mentally catching up with the speed of the game and physically making their bodies do what they know is the right read and right reaction.”
Lady Jackets sophomore Arrisa Turner scored Cleburne’s first three points of the game to get the home team on the board, and senior post Savannah Gaines stole the ball and scored on the offensive end at the cup to pull her team within 8-5 with 15 ticks remaining in the first.
In the second quarter, Turner completed an old-fashioned three-point play in the opening seconds of the frame to tie the score at 8-8, and Gaines split a pair of free throws at the 4:57 mark to give Cleburne its first lead of the game at 9-8. From there, the teams traded buckets and exchanged the lead five times on the way to a 15-13 halftime lead for Burleson, who grabbed the edge on a nice pick-and-roll feed from 5-foot-2 senior guard E’marie Lewis to junior forward Samara Nixon.
In the third quarter, Gaines erupted in front of the home crowd to spark her team.
She opened up scoring in the third quarter on a layup with 5:55 left that gave Cleburne a 17-16 advantage. After Brinkley Hall of Burleson knocked down a triple, Cleburne senior guard Irene Beltran tied the game at 19-all with her layup at the 5:12 mark. After that, Gaines gave the Lady Jackets a 21-19 lead with her layup at the 3:41 mark and she followed that with a short jumper with 2:52 to go that extended the advantage to 23-19.
“Savannah (Gaines) is the ultimate team captain. She likes to see her teammates shine, she’s a great student and she’s a great student of the game, so it’s nice to see her be rewarded,” Lawrence said. “As a post player, you rely heavily on guards since the game of basketball is played through guards and not the post today. It says a lot that they want to get the ball into her and make the extra pass — she came through and had some good shots there at the end.”
Following Gaines’ scoring spree, Burleson closed the quarter on an 8-3 run that gave the road team a 27-26 edge entering the fourth quarter.
In the final quarter of regulation, Lady Jackets freshman guard Izzy Guadamuz gave Cleburne its last lead of the game at 28-27 with 7:37 left after she stole the ball from a Burleson guard and scored on the other end. Following that bucket, Burleson went in front 35-28 following an 8-0 run and was capped off by Lewis’ driving layup with 4:45 remaining. Despite that, the home team kept fighting with the win still well within reach. Cleburne trailed 40-35 late in the quarter, but Gaines’ layup with 1:04 left and a huge 3-pointer from Guadamuz with 29 seconds left trimmed the Lady Elks’ lead to 41-40. Despite that, the Lady Elks padded the lead to 43-40 and held on late to secure the victory.
“We’ve been in this situation and it’s just going to take collective mental focus to get over the hump,” Lawrence said. “Even if you aren’t one of the five that’s on the floor, you have to be paying attention because you never know when your number is going to be called — we literally went through several people off the bench. Asking questions is big, too. Practice is the prime time to ask questions so that we all know when a coach calls a timeout, it’s just to settle you down and review the situation you’re in. It’s just a matter of being able to execute.”
Gaines scored a team-high 14 points for Cleburne while Turner scored seven. Senior post Akira Chambers, who’s good sportsmanship was on display the entire game, contributed with six points while Guadamuz and Beltran added five and four points, respectively.
Hall led the Lady Elks with a game-high 18 points while Lewis had nine. Senior post Kendall Carlock, who also starred for Burleson on the volleyball court, scored eight points and pulled down several rebounds while senior Courtlyn Middlebrook netted eight points.
The Lady Jackets will take the court again at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Centennial while the Lady Elks look to keep the momentum going at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at home against Joshua.
