Tascosa Lady Rebels come up big late to beat Amarillo High

With the pretenders cleared out of the way, this is the week for the contenders to step up in the District 3-5A girls playoff race, and Friday night that was on display for the second time in what will be eight days at the Tascosa Activity Center.

This round featured two Amarillo schools ranked in the top five, as No. 4 Tascosa hosted No. 5 Amarillo High in the second meeting of the season between the Amarillo ISD powers.

In a game which was as competitive as any normal person would figure, this time Tascosa prevailed, as the Lady Rebels got a season district split by beating Amarillo High 55-49.

Tascosa (27-4, 11-2 in district) has now split with Amarillo High and No. 1 Lubbock Monterey, who beat the Lady Rebels 60-44 in Lubbock to open the week Tuesday. All three ranked teams have clinched playoff spots, and it’s just a matter of positioning now, with Amarillo High (26-5, 12-2) hosting Monterey on Tuesday.

The Lady Rebels hardly lacked for incentive against Amarillo High when factors such as state rankings, local pride and an earlier loss to the Lady Sandies are weighed. Tascosa coach Chris Sumrall was most pleased with his team’s toughness for four quarters.

“I’m really proud of the physicality that we played with,” Sumrall said. “When we got up in the first quarter we really turned that up. I thought we handled that really well and that’s the thing I’m probably most proud of tonight. We made plays and didn’t get down much.”

Tascosa didn’t waste much time jumping on the Lady Sandies from the outset, as the Lady Rebels led by as many as 10 in the first quarter and led 20-12 at the end of the period.

Nic’Kiyah Fisher, who had a game-high 19 points, hit three 3-pointers in the opening quarter, and post Tryssa Dowd ended the quarter by converting a three-point play.

The second quarter was more of an offensive grind, as the two teams combined for only nine points, but Tascosa still led 23-20 at halftime.

At that point, the game was already different from the first meeting between the two teams, in which Amarillo High never trailed and beat Tascosa convincingly, 51-40. The Lady Rebels had beaten No. 1 Monterey a few days earlier and may have been suffering a hangover.

“I think the first time we played well, but we were still hung up on the Monterey game,” Sumrall said. “When you start thinking about coaching 15, 16, 17 year old kids, who can blame them. I thought that had to do with how poorly we came out that game but obviously that wasn’t the case tonight.”

Of course, this being Amarillo High and Tascosa, nothing was going to come too easily for anybody. The Lady Sandies came back in the third quarter and eventually took the lead for the first time, and when Bella Edwards scored, Amarillo High led 33-29 late in the quarter.

However, the Lady Rebels got some momentum to end the quarter which seemed to carry into the last period. Fisher and Dowd both scored on putbacks as Tascosa tied the game at 33 at the end of the quarter.

The Lady Rebels took the lead to start the fourth and built it back to as many as 10 points again. Alex Carter, who didn’t score in the first three quarters, and Daveah Johnson combined for 13 points in the fourth quarter to spark the Lady Rebels.

That typified the toughness Sumrall loved and he’s hoping it carries forward.

“What we wanted to accomplish this time was real important because now we’ve got three games left and we want to finish it out strong and see how the rest of it plays out,” Sumrall said. “I’m really pleased with everything.”

Edwards, who led the Lady Sandies with 12 points, and Emma Brown hit late 3-pointers to pull the Lady Sandies to within four, but they got no closer.

Johnson had 12 points for Tascosa. Ca’nia Mitchell added 10 for Amarillo High.