Carroll girls basketball facing either-or scenario
Carroll girls basketball coach Teri Morrison and her team’s Tuesday’s regular season finale at Colleyville Heritage was an either/or scenario.
Either the Lady Dragons (17-3, 7-4) were going to finish in second place in District 7-6A with a victory, or they were going to finish fourth and face national power Duncanville in the postseason with a loss. While the magnitude of avoiding the giant is something that is on the agenda, Morrison just wanted her team to deliver a solid performance before it began the postseason.
As the way the district tiebreakers stand, there’s no way Carroll could finish third. Carroll swept Hurst L.D. Bell but lost to Colleyville Heritage in the first meeting. What really hurt was the 43-40 loss to Richland on Feb. 2. That took any advantage away from the Lady Dragons in terms of having room to spare.
Couple this past Friday’s 29-24 loss to Euless Trinity, which wrapped up the district championship last week, and Carroll understood the crucial ramifications of this game. Still, the Lady Dragons control their own fate.
As for L.D. Bell, it finished the regular season Tuesday against Haltom. Most were expecting the Lady Blue Raiders to win that. If that happens, L.D. Bell would finish either second or third.
Colleyville Heritage is either going finish third or fourth. The Lady Panthers cannot finish second.
Carroll’s slow-paced game against Trinity nearly worked. The game was tied 22-22 with about four minutes to play in the fourth quarter. However, the Lady Dragons couldn’t manufacture enough offense to pull off the upset. They limited district player of the year candidate Trinity Oliver to 14 points.
“I thought defensively, we gave an exceptional performance,” Morrison said. “It was a matchup combination of man and zone. To hold Oliver was a great thing because she’s the best player in our district. We went with a different offense, and I thought we had a good scheme. I was very pleased with our effort.”
District 8-6A race
This is why the Carroll-Colleyville Heritage grudge match was so important. Duncanville, which is ranked No. 2 in the USA Today girls national poll, is 30-0 and of course, finished the District 8-6A season with a bye on Tuesday.
So you can be sure that coaches will be at Colleyville Heritage to watch this game. Cedar Hill has already wrapped up second place as it was 9-2 going into its regular season finale Tuesday against DeSoto, which is in fourth place. South Grand Prairie sits in third place at 7-4 and finished Tuesday at Mansfield. The Lady Warriors were heavy favorites to win that game.
Even if DeSoto was to upset Cedar Hill and South Grand Prairie loses to Mansfield, the Lady Warriors would have the tiebreaker because they swept DeSoto.
The winner of Carroll-Colleyville Heritage would face South Grand Prairie.
“It’s a little different territory for us,” Morrison said. “But the only thing we have to do is worry about the next game.”
The struggle
It’s pretty much a given that Carroll is going to finish with more turnovers than assists this year. Going into the finale, the Lady Dragons committed 169 turnovers and had just 111 assists. Without a true point guard, Carroll just did not have a player who could efficiently run its offense consistently.
“This team struggled protecting the basketball,” Morrison said. “But we put up our best fight and there will be some things that we can work on in offseason to be even better.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Carroll girls basketball facing either-or scenario."