ALTAIR — The Rice High School girl’s basketball team hosted Brazos High School Dec. 4 at Raider’s Gym in Altair in an area matchup and were victorious by a final score of 30-14. A closer start to the game led to Rice hitting a bunch of shots later in the second quarter, which ultimately made the deficit too large to comeback from for Brazos as Rice was able to keep that same kind of lead for the rest of the game.
“We just have to keep our defense going,” said Rice head girl’s basketball coach Reagan Beal.
“Our defense leads to points and we want to try and run. We want to try and go because for some reason, we make shots whenever we’re tired. Whenever we’re not tired, they don’t seem to fall. The main reason why we’re actually able to kind of really expand how we’re doing things this year is because the whole group’s been together and our defense has just been perfect.”
Lady Raiders senior point guard Beautiful Johnson had some big fast-break points toward the end of the game to help seal the win. “You just got to take the team and put them on your shoulders sometimes,” Johnson said. “Really be the coach that’s on the court for them. It’s a young team currently, so just got to take control.”
Brazos didn’t play a bad game, it’s just that Rice’s ability to hit big time shots made it hard to defend.
“I would say there was just a lot of effort given,” said Brazos head girl’s basketball coach Katherine Ressler. “It just showed that if somebody wants the ball, they’re gonna get after it. That’s just how basketball is. The team that wants it is gonna get it.”
It was a back and forth first quarter as one free throw from Brazos senior power forward Rylea Roecker made it 8-5 at the 1:46 mark in favor of Brazos to give the Cougarettes a lead by the same score at the end of the first quarter. Rice hit a three-pointer for the
first points of the second quarter with 5:40 to go to tie it at eight, then the Lady Raiders didn’t allow a single point for the entire quarter and ended the quarter with two big threes in the last minute.
One from junior center Jordyn Fuller and one from senior guard Diamond Fuller at the buzzer to take a commanding 19-8 lead at halftime.
Neither team scored a point in the third quarter, which led to both teams trading layups to start the fourth quarter. After a few more possessions of trading baskets, Johnson made two layups in a row for Rice with about three minutes to go, both in fast-break fashion to make it 28-14.
One more fast-break layup, this time on a dish from Johnson to freshman forward Faith Rodriguez at the 1:25 mark helped Rice cruise to a 30-14 win.
