For the fourth straight season the two teams met in the playoffs with the stakes as high as they could get. Fortunately for the Sandies, the results were like two of the previous three times.
No. 5 Amarillo High bounced back from a slow start midway through the first quarter and dominated the rest of the way, rolling to a 56-35 victory at Kay Yeager Coliseum. The Sandies (33-4) will face El Paso Chapin, who beat Colleyville Heritage 48-41 in the day’s second semifinal, Saturday at 1 p.m.
That the Sandies (33-4) won wasn’t a shocker. What was a surprise was the relative ease with which they won, at least after the first few minutes.
“We didn’t think that would happen because they’re such a good team,” AHS coach Jason Pillion said of the Jaguars. “I think it was a result of our kids just battling. They could have folded and didn’t. That’s the way they played the last 3 ½ quarters.”
After scoring the first five points of the game, No. 7 Summit (27-9) seemed to be the team which got off on the right foot. But the rest of the half belonged to the Sandies, who scored 29 of the last 31 points of the first half, including 27 straight at one point to take a 31-10 halftime lead.
The Jaguars led 8-2 midway through the first quarter, but after Amarillo called a timeout, the Sandies seemed to come to life at both ends of the floor.
“I felt like we were scared and we were soft,” said Pillion, typically not mincing words. “We needed to stop doing that and to their credit they weren’t scared or soft anymore the rest of the game. Every kid in that locker room is very tough, but sometimes that moment in the regional tournament makes you think about things that aren’t very important. We just needed to be reminded of who we were and I’m just so proud of them.”
It also didn’t hurt that Creed Barnes came off the bench for eight points in the first half.
Amarillo High was accurate from beyond the arc in the first half, hitting seven 3-pointers. By the time the Sandies were through with their run, they led 29-8 before Summit’s Theo Brannan finally made a pair of free throws to end the drought.
The Jaguars showed more life offensively in the second half, but never seriously threatened the Sandies. Summit was unable to pull any closer than 16 the rest of the way, as Amarillo led by as many as 25 in the fourth quarter.
Brown had a game-high 20 points while Hausen had 16. They were the principals in handling the ball against Summit’s press which featured plenty of hand-checking.
“This is the fourth straight year we’ve played them and every single year they’ve done it,” Pillion said. “They get after you and we knew it was coming and I thought our kids really handled that well as far as the physicality of the game.”
Derrick Brown led Summit with 11 points and Isaiah Walker had 10. Most of those points came in the second half as the Jaguars were fighting to stay in the game.