Lady 'Birds tango with Terry
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley I'm Open Ashley Brooks calls for the ball against Terry, Tuesday. She scored 17 points.

The Lady 'Birds walked over Terry Tuesday to stay in third place, eyeing the post-season.

A 49-25 win helped El Campo keep pushing toward its playoff goal. Head Coach Noma Kremling was pleased with the effort.

"I thought the Lady 'Birds came to play tonight and I was real pleased with the way they got up and down the court," Kremling said. "They did things well on offense, they did things well on defense, they got off to a good start and that put the other team in a bind right away."

It can be hard to view a game against a last-place team as a mustwin, but with the Foster Falcons closing in on El Campo's third-place ranking, Kremling said that's exactly what Tuesday was.

"Foster already played Bay City and Lamar and we haven't played Bay City (a second time) yet. That's going to be a tough game too, so we couldn't afford to come over here and lose."

The Falcons played Terry Friday while El Campo faced Bay City, 8-0 in district play. With a Foster win and El Campo loss the likely scenarios of Friday's events, the Falcons and Lady Birds will finish the regular season playing each other on Foster's home court.

L-N Photo by Chris Barbee A Little Hustle Chelsi Robinson (right) shows her spirit as she fights for a loose ball.

As of presstime, no information was available on Friday's games, but if they play out as many predict, Tuesday's game will be Foster's only shot at knocking the Lady 'Birds out of the playoffs. A Falcon win over El Campo would force a playoff between the two teams with the winner taking the third and final spot into the post-season.

El Campo's win over Terry helped build momentum after a loss to Lamar Consolidated in their previous game.

"For one thing, I think it reestablished confidence in ourselves," Kremling said. "I didn't think we played that well at Seven Lakes and I certainly didn't think we played that well against Lamar. In spurts, we did fine against Lamar, but I was very disappointed to lose that game in our own gym.

"I think that tonight, we came out and played 32 minutes of good basketball. It's important for our confidence level to reestablish to ourselves that we are a good team, but we have to come and play each and every Tuesday and Friday night."

An El Campo win was never in question throughout the night.

Only 4 minutes into the game, the Lady 'Birds led 18-4. The cruised to outscore Terry 20-8 in the first and took a 30-13 by halftime.

The second half was a continued dominating performance by El Campo. The Lady 'Birds shut down Terry 13-9 in the third and held off their opponent 6-3 in the fourth for a 49-25 final win.