Lady Panthers, Mustangs, Dragons get ready for tournaments
The girls basketball teams for Colleyville Heritage, Grapevine and Southlake Carroll continue the learning process that is non-district and tournament season.
Colleyville Heritage (4-3): Dianna Sager’s team did not play in the middle of this week. The Lady Panthers are in Katy for a tournament Thursday-Saturday. They open with Houston Episcopal.
As hot as this team was from the field to start the season, the Lady Panthers went cold in the Nov. 22 44-35 loss to Mansfield Summit. Colleyville Heritage trailed 29-26 going into the fourth quarter but a 15-40 shooting performance (37.5 percent) was the difference. That took away from shooting 75 percent on fouls and committing only nine turnovers.
The rugged non-district schedule is typical for Sager’s program. This team usually is sitting around .500 by the time district play starts. Sager was hoping she could get senior guard Caitlyn Foster back for the tournament. Foster went down with a shoulder injury two weeks ago against Denton Ryan and didn’t play against Summit.
“That’s a starter and one of my best defenders,” Sager said. “We’ve really missed her on the floor because she gives us so much. Hopefully, we can see her this week.”
Grapevine (2-3): Simplifying things with the offense brought desired results, even if it wasn’t in the form of wins for the Lady Mustangs.
They split their two games last week against Carroll and Denton. However, they averaged 47 points in the two games. That’s a significant upgrade from first three games, when Grapevine averaged just a little more than 25 points.
“What we basically did was set up some things where everything was quicker and not so complex,” Slagle said. “It’s a situation where we can get a quick option. If we don’t score off of that, then we’re in a position to reset it.
“I think I was giving them too many options and reads. It became a mess out there. So we changed some things and got some better results.”
The inside-outside game of point guard Samantha Tatum and freshman 6-0 post Dasha MacMillan has shown promise and could be the punch that Slagle wants for the rest of the year. The two combined for 25 of the 50 points in the win at Denton. Grapevine played Hurst L.D. Bell on Tuesday before traveling to the Canyon tournament on Thursday.
“Not only did Sam do a great job scoring,” Slagle said, “she was also very good in distributing the ball. Dasha brings a lot of size and physicality to the position. We’ve really worked with her on the inside so she can attack the basket better.”
Slagle, though, will work a short week. Because she is inside one month before the birth of her son, doctors have forbidden her from traveling. That means she won’t see her father Joe, the head coach at Canyon. There is the potential for Canyon and Grapevine to meet in the second game of that tournament.
Carroll (4-3): The Lady Dragons were coming off a 44-41 win over Grapevine on Nov. 21 and prepared to play Arlington Bowie on Tuesday before heading over to White Settlement for the Brewer tournament Thursday-Saturday.
Junior guard Abby Zeitsiff enjoyed a breakthrough performance with 14 points in the win over the Lady Mustangs.
This story was originally published November 29, 2016 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Lady Panthers, Mustangs, Dragons get ready for tournaments."