Consider the Highlassies scarred.
Andrea Johnson, Marisa Rauss and Mareta Bailey all scored 17 points as Temple pounded McLennan Community College 78-59 in a key Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference matchup at TC Gym on Monday night
“I think the girls focused as a team tonight,” TC coach Kim Sebek said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these girls. They had a job to do and wanted to take care of business. They stepped up with intensity and desire to get it done.”
The first 10 minutes looked typical of many McLennan-Temple games as the teams fought passionately to a 16-all tie.
McLennan’s Nicole Governal broke the tie with a 3-pointer with 9:35 left in the half, but that would be the last lead the Highlassies had the entire night.
Buckets by Brittany Bryant and Bailey gave the Lady Leopards (15-11, 9-4 NTJCAC) the lead back and began a 15-0 run.
McLennnan (19-7, 11-1) finally ended the drought with free throws by Eilleen Pineda with 2:45 left in the half to cut the lead to 31-21. After Pineda’s short jumper, TC closed out the half with a jump shot by Bryant, a 3 by Julisa Mitchell and a lay-in at the buzzer by Rauss to take a 38-23 lead into the half.
“That was a big factor for us,” McLennan coach Ricky Rhodes said of the scoring drought. “Sometimes we rely on our shooting instead on just going to play defense and letting our defense build a lot of our momentum. But you can’t go into a game and have 5- or 6-minute droughts and expect to stop top teams like Temple.”
And the Lady Leopards weren’t about to let the Highlassies back in the game, outscoring McLennan 23-5 in the first 10 minutes of the second half to establish a 33-point lead.
“Usually we come out after halftime and go on a little scoring drought,” Sebek said. “But we stepped up tonight. We were able to score and keep it going instead of the little scoring drought.
“I told them before we tipped off, ‘We are going to war, now let’s go win the battle.’ Then at halftime, I told them, ‘We just won World War I, now it’s time to go win World War II.’ Maybe it’s corny, but they responded to it. And it’s true, we really had to go with both battles tonight.”
TC’s lead was large. But against the Highlassies, who had overcome a double-digit deficit to beat the Lady Leopards in Waco, it wasn’t enough to necessarily secure the victory.
Rhodes changed his plan a bit by inserting 6-3 Laura Castleberry to counter Rauss and Bailey, then instructed his guards to concentrate on penetrating and creating foul opportunities.
The result was a 13-0 McLennan run that took little time off the clock as nine of the points came either at the free-throw line or from putbacks by Castleberry.
“We were so focused on stopping their perimeter players from shooting 3s or driving that we weren’t getting back to box her out,” Sebek said of Castleberry. “She got some easy put-back shots, but we were really focused on stopping their 3-point shooters because the 3s can add up and put you right back in it.”
With the lead cut to 20 and time running down, Rhodes had to remove Castleberry in favor of more speed and outside shooting.
Temple kept pace with MCC the rest of the way - getting several fast break opportunities on errant 3s - then ran down the clock.
“It was a great win to beat the undefeated, No. 1 team in conference,” Sebek said. “It just shows that hopefully at this time, we are starting to peak and play our best basketball. If we can continue that the next three games, then we’ll be all right.”
Added Rhodes: “I have to give Coach Sebek and Temple all the credit. They were ready to play tonight. They came out and executed. Once we hit 10-0, we had talked about making it one of our goals to see if we could go undefeated in conference, but maybe this helps us down the road. We’ll see what kind of character our team has when we go to Cisco on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile, the Lady Leopards will take on Southwestern Christian College at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Terrell.
“We will enjoy this one tonight, and know how it feels to beat a great team like MCC,” Sebek said. “But we still have to focus and prepare for Southwestern up there. And it’s never easy to play up there”
