Lady Mustangs play hot but suffer major injury

Grapevine’s girls basketball season, filled with such promise, suffered a major blow late last week when senior point guard Mandi Routon went down with a major knee injury and is likely lost for the remainder of the season.

Head coach Lindy Lombard said the preliminary reports are that Routon tore both her left ACL and MCL. An MRI is expected later this week. Lombard said Routon suffered the injury during a layup drill at practice this past Thursday. It dampened what was otherwise a very strong week for the Lady Mustangs, who defeated District 7-6A teams Coppell (33-28) and Richland (39-20).

“It was just a situation where one part of the leg went one way and the other part of the leg went the other,” Lombard said. “When we heard the yell, all of us had a feeling of what happened. I feel so bad for her because she’s been such a good leader for us and her leadership has been really important.”

The Lady Mustangs (14-2) lose a four-year veteran who averaged 10 points 2.5 assists and four rebounds per game so far. In the victory against Richland last Friday, Lombard distributed the playing time and ball handling duties between senior guards Nicole Taake and Sidney Bowers.

Throughout her career, Taake has been a pretty steady ball handler. This year she has 10 more assistants than turnovers. Bowers is averaging about five points per game.

“Nicole is very calm and collected and runs the point the way you hope she does,” Lombard said. “She shows a lot of emotion. She had 10 rebounds against Coppell so you know she’s going to compete. I’ve really been happy with the way Sidney has been progressing.”

The Lady Mustangs opened District 6-5A play Tuesday at Fort Worth Eastern Hills and Friday at Fort Worth Dunbar.

Colleyville Heritage update

The Lady Panthers split their week last week against the Arlington ISD schools, a 50-39 loss to Arlington Bowie and a 79-32 victory over Arlington.

Really, Colleyville Heritage (8-7) had one bad quarter, the third against Bowie. Colleyville Heritage was outscored in the period, 17-5, and lost a 24-20 lead at the half.

“I thought we played really well and it was a carryover from the weekend in Katy,” head coach Dianna Sager said. “Our intensity was really good. Bowie is just an excellent team. We stayed within 4-5 points until the end.

“But we kept it going against Sam Houston. We just got after them pretty quickly and had strong performances all around.”

And in case you were wondering, freshman guard/post Bryn Gerlich has not acted like a freshman averaging 18.3 points per game. The difference between her game other freshman phenoms who have come through Colleyville Heritage (Alexia Standish comes to mind) is that Gerlich is 5-11 and a hard matchup because she can score from the perimeter. But she’s also not a spot-up shooter.

“The fact that she can get her shot off pretty quickly and is good with her pull up jumpers is something that really works for her,” Sager said. “She can create her own shot.”

Colleyville Heritage began District 7-6A play this week. It played host to Coppell on Tuesday and plays at Richland on Friday.

This story was originally published December 15, 2014 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Lady Mustangs play hot but suffer major injury."