Class 6A girls state semifinals: Did South Grand Prairie, Duncanville secure wins?
Duncanville takes overtime to subdue Summer Creek
The Duncanville girls basketball team led for all but 16 seconds of its Class 6A state semifinal with Houston Summer Creek, but the Panthers were still on the brink of elimination.
The Bulldogs rallied from nine down in the fourth quarter to force overtime, but Duncanville out scored Summer Creek 8-0 in the extra period to take a 39-31 win on Friday at the Alamodome.
“It was everything that I expected it to be,” said Duncanville coach Neiman Ford. “A hard fought game against a well-coached team. They’ve been here before and coach Ott is a championship coach so I knew that they were going to come here ready.”
No. 5 Duncanville (34-4) will be making its 18th appearance in a state title game and will face No. 7 South Grand Prairie (33-3) at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The Panthers have 11 championships under their belt which is third most all time with the last one being in 2020. Duncanville has been to the state tournament 27 times which ranks third all time as well.
Summer Creek (35-4) took its only lead at 8-7 with 3:04 left in the first quarter, but a three pointer by Mariah Clayton with 2:48 left gave the lead back to Duncanville.
The Panthers led by nine at the half and at the end of the third quarter before the Bulldogs made a run.
Summer Creek out scored Duncanville 11-2 in the fourth quarter including a basket by Kennedy Simpson with 3:49 left that tied the game at 29-all.
“We really didn’t have a rhythm in the fourth quarter and they changed some things up and took us out of our flow,” said Ford. “At that point we knew that we were going to have to win it on the defensive end because our shots weren’t falling.”
Clayton answered with a lay up with 2:41 left to take a 31-29 lead then both teams struggled from there. Duncanville missed four foul shots while Summer Creek had three missed field goal attempts.
Mariyah Brown tied the game for Summer Creek with eight seconds left and sent the game to overtime.
“I told the girls that we’re not going to panic and we’re going to be okay,” said Ford. “We’ve been here before and as hard as we’ve worked this season we could have played five overtimes because we’re in such good condition.”
In the overtime it was all Duncanville. The Panthers looked as if they were stalling to run the four minutes off the clock and take one shot at the end, but Summer Creek finally started pressuring the ball.
Clayton took advantage with back to back lay ins to give the Panthers a 35-31 lead. After that Duncanville made four of six free throws to put the game away.
The Bulldogs went scoreless in the OT missing on all five field goal attempts and turning the ball over once.
Clayton and Chloe Mann, both McDonald’s all-american nominees, led Duncanville in scoring with 18 and 14 points respectively. Mann is headed to Cincinnati in the fall.
The Bulldogs didn’t have a player reach double figures in scoring, but had five girls with five or more points led by Zachara Perkins with eight. Brown finished with six points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
Ford won two state title with the Panthers boys team as an assistant coach before moving over to the girls team last April after LaJeanna Howard was suspended due to UIL violations.
Summer Creek coach Donny Ott is in his first season as coach of the Bulldogs after winning back-to-back state titles at Cedar Park in 2021 and 2022. Ott coached at North Crowley from 2015-17.
This is Summer Creek’s third trip to the state tournament. The Bulldogs have lost in the semifinals each time.
South Grand Prairie rides big run to title game
The South Grand Prairie girls team went on a 12-0 run starting in the second quarter to break open a close game and cruise into the Class 6A state championship game with a 53-42 win over San Antonio Brennan on Friday in the semifinals at the Alamodome.
South Grand Prairie (33-3), ranked No. 7 in the state in 6A by the TABC, will meet No. 5 Duncanville (34-4) at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Out of all the high schools in 6A across the state, the title will be decided by to schools that are seven miles apart.
A big concern going into the game was whether or not the Warriors could stop Brennan’s Bella Flemings.
“We followed our game plan really well tonight,” said South Grand Prairie coach Brion Raven. “San Antonio Brennan has two studs and they’re hard to game plan for. We really limited their touches and our kids boxed out and limited them to one shot.”
Raven added that they did what they had to do against Flemings, who had 47 points in the Region IV final against San Antonio Clark. Flemings was one of seven from the field in the first half and finished with a pedestrian seven points, six rebounds and five assists.
The game was nip and tuck until the 4:15 mark of the second quarter when Taliyah Parker hit a three pointer to start the 12-0 run.
The Bears had six field goal attempts that were missed and two turnovers going scoreless for almost five minutes before Anyla Herbert hit a free throw to give South its biggest lead at 28-13 at the 7:30 mark of the third quarter.
“Going into the game we really felt like we wanted to try to put them away early,” said Taylor Barnes, who led South Grand Prairie with 24 points and 12 rebounds. “When they went on runs we just needed to calm down and do what we needed to do.”
The Bears did close to within seven points, 32-25, on a three by Tyra Sotelo with 3:39 left in the third quarter, but Spirit Sheriff answered with a three of her own for SGP to push the lead back to 10 where it stayed for much of the rest of the night.
“It was a little choppy for us the whole game,” said Raven. “We couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively, but we did enough defensively and we did enough on the boards.
“Our kids just gutted it out. It was a character win.”
Parker finished with nine points and four steals for South.
Taylor Ross, Mahogany Pierce and Sotelo had 11 points each for the Bears. Ross also had a double double collecting 12 rebounds.
The Warriors have now made three trips to the state tournament, all recently. SGP lost to DeSoto the first two times in the 2021 semifinals and the 2022 title game.
Brennan (32-4) was making its third trip to state. The Bear have lost in the semifinals each time.
“They’re a great program and well coached with talented players,” said Raven on meeting Duncanville for the title. “Their history speaks for itself. Tomorrow Duncanville’s going to bring it and I wouldn’t expect anything else.
“We know what they’re going to do and they just do what they do and it will be a matter of us following our game plan and not getting outside of ourselves.”
“I’m looking very forward to it,” said Barnes. “We’re ready to play.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2024 at 11:43 PM.