Lady Cats thriving in district

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Big Sandy girls basketball built a lead early and cruised to a 57-38 win over the Lady Pirates of Deweyville Friday at homecoming in Dallardsville.

The Lady Cats allowed just half of their 18 points in the first quarter. They received scoring contributions from Shanaya Poncho and Kaiyah Abbey, who had eight and five, respectively, over the opening eight minutes.

The ‘Cats put up another 16 points in the second, spreading that total over six players. Poncho scored 10 in the third to put Big Sandy up by 19. Deweyville shot an incredible 16-of-17 from the free-throw line through three quarters, accounting for more than half of their total to that stage in the game.

“I am glad that we won the game, but I didn't think we played up to our standards in this game,” Big Sandy coach Ryan Alec said. “We talk about standards in this program and work ethic, putting in effort defensively, blocking out on rebounds, and I just didn't think we did a very good job with that. We came out flat early and we talk every single game about how we set the precedent early. How you start a game is probably going to determine how you play in the rest of the game. We were flat at times, letting our man go by us and didn't have a lot of intensity on defense. We tried to press them a little bit and they started running by us with the ball. It is frustrating watching it at times because we know where we can be and we didn't meet those expectations.”

For the game Poncho led with 20 points, Abbey 13, Yaheira Battise nine and Amberlee Smith eight.

“Offensively, we were a little stagnant and we have to make some adjustments moving forward,” Alec said. “Teams are adjusting to us, and we tried to get the ball inside a lot to Yaheira. She's done some good things for us in the first round of district, and now teams are understanding what our game plan is going into the game. They are going to adjust just like Deweyville did with us. Moving on these next couple of weeks, we are going to have to make some adjustments because teams will play us differently.”

Big Sandy is now 6-1 in district play and 20-8 overall after defeating Sabine Pass in a makeup game Saturday. The sole loss is versus Danbury the week before. The Lady Cats lost by 10 on the road, so there is still hope that they can return the favor in the second round. Tuesday they will travel to Saratoga to challenge West Hardin.