Tigers’ season comes to an end
Life Red Oak beats Daingerfield, 54-40
ROCKWALL, Texas—Daingerfield ran into a buzzsaw, but the Tigers bit back for awhile.
Sixth-ranked Life Red Oak pulled away in the second quarter with a 12-4 run, extended its advantage to 13 through three quarters and then held on to win the Region II-3A semifinal game over the 25th-ranked Tigers, 54-40, Friday at Heath High School.
The Mustangs (35-3) play Van Alstyne (28-1) for the regional championship and berth to the state tournament at 2 p.m. today. Daingerfield ends its season at 24-6.
The Tigers had a 26 shooting percentage on 13 of 50 from the field. Life Red Oak shot 38 percent on 21 of 56 shots.
The rebounds (45-44) and turnovers (15-14) were slightly held in the Mustangs’ favor.
“I told the kids ‘I don’t mind losing but I would like to be able to walk
out and say we ran into a better team,’” Tiger coach Curtis Lewis said. “But we were our worst enemy tonight. We didn’t hit the boards like we normally do and didn’t attack the front of the rim like we normally do. What got us to the regional tournament was rebounding, defense and attacking the rim, and we just didn’t do that consistently tonight.”
Daingerfield made a run at its deficit in the second half. The Tigers cut it to 25-19 and 31-22. From that point Life rattled off 11 points in a row to go up 42-22 with 6:28 left in the game.
The District 16 champions cut their deficit to 44-33 before the teams matched near point for point the rest of the way.
The Tigers came out and traded blow for blow with the Mustangs in a conservative, defensive-driven first quarter.
KeKe Chism nailed a 3-pointer for Daingerfield to start the game, and Life Red Oak answered with a pair of layups. Rickey Lee drained a trey for the Tigers at 4:09, and LRO tied it on a fast-break layup.
Chism made all three free throws after being hit on a long-range shot in the final 20 seconds, and Daniel Nguyen drove for a layup at the buzzer to cut the Mustangs’ deficit to 9-8 at the first break.
To start the second quarter 6-5 guard Justin Nimmer scored the first four points and had eight in the period. Life took a 14-9 lead before Darrian Terry scored four points, cutting it to 14-12 and then 16-13 with 3:29 remaining in the half.
Nimmer drained his 3-pointer and the front end of a oneand-one to give the Mustangs a 20-13 lead at halftime.
“I’m not taking anything away from Life because they’re a good ball team and did what they needed to do to win,” Lewis said. “But we didn’t play our style tonight.”
Lee led the Tigers with 13 points, Chism had 11 and Mims eight. Lee also pulled down 10 rebounds.
Joshua Sanders paced the Mustangs with 13 points, and Nimmer and Kensen Vaughan added 11 each. Robin White had 11 rebounds, and Jonathan Hurst pulled down 10 boards.
In the first semifinal, Van Alstyne eliminated Faith Family Academy, 57-44. Daingerfield 9 4 9 18 — 40 Life Red Oak 8 12 15 19 — 54 DAINGERFIELD (40): Fomby 0 1-2 1, Chism 3 3-3 11, Mims 3 2-6 8, Jeter 1 0-0 3, Lee 5 1-2 13, Terry 1 2-5 4, TOTALS 13-50 9-18 40 LRO (54): Nimmer 3 4-6 11, Hurst 3 1-2 7, Nguyen 3 0-0 6, Gonzales 1 0-0 2, White 1 2-2 4, Vaughan 4 2-2 11, Sanders 6 1-3 13, TOTALS 21-56 10-15 54. 3-point goals: DNG-Chism 2, Lee 2, Mims; LRO-Nimmer, Vaughan. Team fouls: Daingerfield 19, Life Red Oak 14. Fouled out: Mims.