Wylie East senior Tabria Williams (42) dribbles the ball up the court during a Class 6A Division II girls’ basketball playoff game against North Forney from Dallas Skyline High School on Monday, Feb. 10. Photo by Maddie Smith / C&S Media
By Art Stricklin
DALLAS – Wearing their brand new pretty in pink district playoff T-shirts to warmup drills, Wylie East turned in a pretty display of playoff basketball with a 48-35 victory over North Forney on Monday night at Skyline High School.
The Lady Raiders (18-17) led most of the game, but had to hold off a determined Noth Forney (13-16) fourth quarter rally. The Lady Falcons cut the deficit to six points, but the Lady Raiders away in the final minutes in the Region II-Division II 6A playoff.
“I thought we played some really good defense tonight and stuck to our game plan,” said Wylie East head coach Meaghan Hodapp.
“But the main thing is we got the first round win,” she said. “We’ve been on a drought for three years, so It felt good to get the win tonight.”
Wylie East will advance to play DeSoto in the second round, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday at Forney High School.
Wylie East’s dynamic duo of senior guard Saliz Ward and sophomore forward Morgan Jennings lead the way in the playoff win.
Ward finished with 22 including nine in the fourth quarter to seal the win, while Jennings had 10 points including the first six.
“I thought our offense was off and on at times, and got stuck some of the time, but found a way to get some points when we needed to,” Hodapp added.
Serving as the home team in the first round playoff game, Wylie East didn’t waste much time feeling right at home as they scored the first 8 points of the game against North Forney.
Super sophomore center Jennings scored the first six herself all coming on lay-ups including the third basket when she stole the ball at midcourt and drove the length of the court for a score.
North Forney scored the last nine points of the quarter and held a one-point lead after the first eight minutes, but the Lady Raiders came back strong to start the second quarter.
Sharmayne Jones hit a jumper for Wylie East to start the quarter for a 10-9 lead and the Lady Raiders never trailed in the remainder of the first half.
Ward was the offensive star in the second quarter with a 3-point basket to increase the lead to 16-11 and added a steal and a lay-up for an 18-11 lead with 4:03 left until halftime.
After taking an eight point halftime lead, the third quarter was more of the same for the Lady Raiders who used a press defense and multiple steals to increase their lead in the quarter.
They forced a North Forney timeout with the score 28-14, their largest lead of the game and they picked up four more points on a technical foul called on Forney for a 32-18 edge with just 3:06 left in the quarter.
North Forney finally hit their first three pointer of the game to cut the deficit to 32-24 at the end of the quarter, but that was as close as they could get in the quarter.
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