Clear Springs holds off Ridge Point 51-47
Clear Springs is returning to the regional finals.
The Chargers rallied from an 11-point deficit in the second quarter, and then held on for a frantic 51-47 win as Ridge Point’s Aleighyah Fontenot rained 3s down the stretch Friday night at the Merrell Center.
“It’s been a long time,” Clear Springs coach Pamela Crawford said. “We haven’t been in the regionals since Tasharian (Robinson) was a senior (in 2016-17).”
The win by Clear Springs (31-7), ranked No. 25 in the state, in the Region III-6A semifinals sets up a showdown with undefeated No. 3 Cypress Creek (39-0) for the regional championship at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Chargers were cold in the first half, and Fontenot picked up where she left off in the regional quarterfinals, when she tied her school record with nine 3-pointers, hitting her first two 3-point shots. Ridge Point closed the first quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 15-6 lead into the second quarter.
Panthers guard Raven Adams pushed the lead to 17-6 with a transition jumper to start the second quarter, then Clear Springs finally found some rhythm, and Kenna Gibson buried their first 3-pointer with one second remaining in the first half to trim Ridge Point’s lead to 19-15 at halftime.
Gibson hit another 3 to start the third, then the Chargers, who cranked up their half-court defense and attacked the glass relentlessly in the second half, used a 9-0 run to turn a onepoint deficit into a 31-23 advantage. They finished the win at the free-throw line, going 14-of-16 in the fourth.
But not before Fontenot (31 points) gave them a scare in the final 1:23.
The junior, who scored 17 in the fourth, swished three treys in less than a minute, pulling Ridge Point within 47-46 with 36 seconds left.
“They’re a great shooting team,” Crawford said. “We finally just had to slow down and play our game. We played ahead of what we really were trying to do, and we weren’t making our shots. Defensively, we did a great job trying to keep the ball out of (Fontenot’s) hands so much, but other than the turnovers, the free throws were finally going in, and that’s what saved us — making free throws.”
NO. 3 CY CREEK 65 NO. 5 SUMMER CREEK 37
In a battle between the last two regional champs in the second semifinal, the Cougars crushed the Bulldogs to return to the regional finals for the second time in three years.
Summer Creek (31-5) beat Cy Creek in the semis last year en route to the state tourney. Cy Creek went to state two years ago.
“They’re a great basketball team, but our defense really stepped up,” Cy Creek coach Jennifer Alexander said. “To hold them to 37 points, they’re a team that first game of the year scored 100-plus, so really it was defensive focus all night long, and we knew rebounding was key. That was going to make or break the game, and we took care of that.”
The Cougars used a 12-0 run in the first to take a 19-7 lead, pushed it to 24 points, 44-20, by halftime, and led as many as 35 in the third. Kyndall Hunter finished with 22 points, Morgan Hill added 15, and Rori Harmon had 13.
“It’s not about beating anybody that we’ve played so far,” Alexander said. “It’s about getting to San Antonio next week, and we’ve got to face a very good defensive team (Saturday) in Clear Springs.”
COLLEGE STATION 68 SHADOW CREEK 49
College Station strong-armed Shadow Creek to jump ahead early and never slowed down offensively, while Shadow Creek made just 31 percent of their shots in the III-5A semifinals at the Campbell Center.
Shadow Creek senior forward Bre’yon White led the Sharks with 15 points on 7-for-14 shooting, but the team as a whole never got rolling.
Shadow Creek went from a fourth-place finish in District 24-5A to first place and was ranked No. 4 in the state to finish the season. The Lady Sharks fall to the 23rd-ranked team in College Station.
CEDAR PARK 56, HIGHTOWER 40
In both games at the Campbell Center, the Houston teams got into foul trouble early and had to ease up the pressure or risk going into the bonus.
Hightower had a rough start due to not playing smart with their physicality and foul trouble.
“The officiating was imbalanced, in my opinion, especially in the first quarter, and we didn’t get some rebounds that we needed to,” Hightower coach Deborah Mize said.
Hightower grew more desperate as the game went on and settled for poor looks on their way to making only 29 percent of their shots, although senior guard Zaria Johnson led her team with 16 points and 46 percent shooting.
The loss was a tough pill to swallow for Hightower, but Mize said she and her seniors will apreciate what they’ve accomplished.
“We’ve been here the past two seasons and a lot of teams would kill for that, and that is a credit to our seniors for how long we’ve been coming back here,” Mize said.
FAIRFIELD 86, YATES 60
The Yates Lady Lions were having a stellar season in their own right but fell in the III-4A semifinals to Fairfield.
The only Houston ISD girls basketball program to appear at a state tournament is Yates, which has three berths in program history.
The Lady Lions were going for their first trip since the 1980s but Fairfield, ranked 11th in the state, was too much. Yates finished the year ranked seventh.