The Canyon Lady Eagles will play for a state championship.
Canyon took care of business against Boerne getting a 53-39 victory in a UIL Class 4A state semifinal on Friday afternoon at the Alamodome in San Antonio in front of 3,022 fans to punch yet another ticket into the title game.
The Lady Eagles (30-6 overall), who are making a 29th appearance at the state tournament, one behind Nazareth’s 30 for the all-time state record, will now play for the program’s unprecedented 22nd state title when they face Waco La Vega (31-11) at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
“It’s awesome,” Canyon head coach Tate Lombard, the son of legendary coach Joe Lombard said. “It’s an honor to be a coach at Canyon where there has been a long line of amazing coaches and players. To me it’s confidence for this team. We’ve had a Canyon team here at the state tournament a lot of times. It’s our 29th appearance here and it’s a lot of fun to look back at a lot of those teams and remember what they had to battle through. We’re excited for the opportunity and prepare for tomorrow.”
Canyon never trailed leading for 29 plus minutes of the contest. Even when the Lady Greyhounds made runs at the Lady Eagles, poise was the name of the game.
Canyon led 16-10 after one with Jaylee Moss starting out on fire with eight quick points. Canyon built as much as a 14-point second quarter advantage before Boerne was able to trim that deficit to nine, 26-17, by halftime.
The third quarter is where things got a little scary for the Lady Eagles. Boerne made its push knocking the lead down to one, 28-27, with 2:44 to play in the third. However, the Lady Eagles didn’t flinch ending the quarter on a 5-1 run to go back up 34-29.
“We try to stay poise the entire time,” Lombard said. “We wanted to stay even the whole time and not show nerves. We have a ton of confidence from each player to make the right play. Boerne is a really good team and tough defensively. We had a great response at the end of the third and early in the fourth.”
Moss was huge the entire way leading the Lady Eagles with 26 points going a perfect 7-of-7 from 3-point range and 8-of-12 from the field. Moss also added four assists. Sydnee Winfrey did her job on both ends tallying eight points with six boards and was amazing defensively with six steals.
Canyon finished the game shooting stellar from the field going 16-of-33 (48 percent) and were incredible from beyond the arc knocking down 10 3-pointers on 13 attempts (76.9 percent).
“This was two really good teams playing physical and tough,” Lombard said. “Both teams went through some stretches where we were up and down. But we battled throughout, and we figured it out. We relaxed and made some big shots and hit some open looks.”