Balanced attack leads Ryan over Velma-Alma

COMANCHE - The Ryan Cowgirls used a balanced scoring attack to advance to the semifinals of the Stephens County Tournament with a 58-34 victory over Velma-Alma on Monday.

“I felt like we didn’t play well early,” said Rob Lancaster, head coach. “I felt like we struggled a little bit trying to get in rhythm. I think that’s a lot because we weren’t in our normal routine of being in school and everything. It felt a little sluggish early, but then we kind of got settled down and hit some shots. Once we started shooting better that helped.”

Even with the sluggish start, Ryan scored the first 11 points of the game and never trailed.

“Velma’s a scrappy team and we didn’t turn them over as much as we normally do,” Lancaster said. “We get going off our defense and since we didn’t force a lot of turnovers early, I think we got a little stagnant until we started to get some shots to fall.”

The balanced scoring came in the form of their two guards Kamrie Hernandez and Micah Villareal and post player Jasmine Villareal, who scored 14, 14 and 21 points, respectively. They proved to be a lethal mixture of outside and inside play.

“We’ve got three girls that can score and are our leaders,” Lancaster said. “They kind of carry us night to night and sometimes one’s playing better than the other two or two are playing better than the one. We rely on all three of those girls to do that. The other girls step up and make plays when they are needed.”

The trio got the Cowgirls rolling, combining to score 14 of their team’s 16 points in the first quarter as they took a 16-7 lead into the second quarter.

Ryan continued to pull away, leading by as many as 17 points in the second quarter before the Lady Comets closed out the half scoring the last five points in the final minute on a pair of buckets by Azya Pemberton that cut the lead to 28-16 lead.

The Cowgirls would put an end to the little momentum swing to open the second half, scoring the first nine points of the third quarter to start to put the game away. The Lady Comets went without a field goal until the 2:20 mark. Ryan pushed its lead to as much as 24 points in the quarter before taking a 44-22 advantage into the final quarter.

Ryan never allowed Velma-Alma a big run to try to get back in the game. The Lady Comets never scored more than two straight trips down the floor before the Cowgirls would get back on the board to keep a safe distance ahead.

Ryan advances to play Marlow in a semifinal matchup on Thursday at 4 p.m. Velma-Alma will take on Central High at 4 p.m. on Friday.

“Marlow’s a good team,” Lancaster said. .”They play a lot of good teams and their schedule is really, really tough. We’re small and not a big team, so that hurts us when we play teams like Marlow who has a lot of size, but we’re a scrappy team and I think we can play with them. It’s really about how well we shoot and rebound. We struggled a bit tonight with rebounding. We stress being physical because of our size, but we don’t do it well sometimes.”

Scoring

Ryan (12-2): Jasmine Villareal, 21; Kamrie Hernandez, 14; Micah Villareal, 14; Tianna Gilando, 6; Kylee Charmasson, 3

Velma-Alma (3-10): Azya Pemberton, 12; Rosa Fernandez-Donat, 8; Makenna Oliver, 7; Presley Condit, 5