The Lingleville Lady Cardinals were looking for a W this week after tough fights with Poolville, Early and Millsap in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Nov. 19 the Lingleville Lay Cards put up 23 against Millsap’s 56.
“It was a tough game against a good Millsap squad. We had trouble defending in the post and gave up too many second-chance points,” said head Lingleville girls basketball coach Brandon Haught. “If you consider the fact that most of our nondistrict schedule is against bigger schools, it bodes well for us come district time. I think playing the tough competition really helps us prepare for adversity when we get back to seeing 1A teams. That strategy paid off in Volleyball, and I expect it to here in basketball.”
“If we can get comfortable handling and shooting the ball then I think our possibilities this season are limitless,” he added. “This team has a lot of grit, and I think when they get the hang of it we will be just fine.”
Stat Leaders were: Kenleigh Jones with 11 points, 8 rebounds and 6 steals; Denise Toledo 4 points and 9 rebounds; and Ciklali Rangel with 8 points.
They followed this with a close 35-28 away loss to Poolville Monday, Nov. 25.
“We lost a tough fight to Poolville, but what I really liked from our kids was their ability to keep fighting,” said Haught. “We have a really young team, and you can see them improving every week. This week, we did a much better job of keeping our mentality strong. We were down by as much as 17 and found a way to bring it back to 7. We started finding some success with the full court press, and so we might feature that more going forward.”
Player of the game was Denise Toledo who Haught said “did an excellent job playing extended minutes and even shut down their post in the 2nd half. Her defense is what allowed us to start making a comeback.”
The Lingleville ladies immediately returned to the court Tuesday, Nov. 26 when they took on Early on the home court. Early took the win 53-22.
“The score doesn’t quite tell the story in this one,” said Haught. “We were tied 16 to 16 at halftime, but Early came out with a press that we had not seen yet this season. While we lost by a big margin, it was good for us to see a glaring weakness we had so we could work on it before district.”
While we are still searching for a win, we certainly are playing strong competition, and I think it will pay off come district play,” he added. “Especially when two of the top ranked teams in the state are in our district.”
Players of the game were Dylan Gibson and Brynlee James who Haught said did a great job defending in the post and put themselves in great position to secure rebounds.