Glenn, Liberty Hill, Johnson City take key district girls hoops wins

LEANDER — Soma Okolo scored 21 points and grabbed 17 rebounds to lead fourth-ranked Glenn (17-1, 3-0) to a 58-35 win over 12th-ranked Hays (14-5, 2-1) in an important District 25-5A meeting Tuesday at Glenn High School.

State second-ranked Liberty Hill (19-0, 3-0) remained tied with Glenn after beating Leander 68-25.

Liberty Hill hosts Glenn on Jan. 12 and travels to Glenn on Feb. 6.

“Hays is a really good team with great guards,” Glenn coach Kenny Mann said.“We knew that they would likely zone us, so we needed to protect the ball, get good movement and find open shots.”

Glenn freshmen point guard Libby Lee ran the Grizzly offense to near perfection as she set up near mid-court to stretch the zone and scored 13 points herself while collecting seven rounds, five steals and 10 assists.

She brought the home crowd to her feet when she swished a half-court shot as the first-half buzzer went off to give the Grizzlies a 20-11 lead.

With Lee feeding Okolo and center Cindy Foka, who also collected 13 points and eight rebounds, the Grizzlies were able to take advantage of a good shooting night by the normally high-scoring Hawks guard-oriented offense.

Endia Stigall had 13 points for Hays as the lightning-quick guard was able to penetrate and score in the eight-foot range while Jivana Caceres had nine points. Caceres, Neela Castillo, and Maya Pimentel had wis rebounds each, but the Hawks struggled form the field shooting under 25 percent as a team.

“We did a good job with our pressure defense tonight,” Mann said, “and they had one of those games where every rim roll went out.”

Lee scored the first four points of the game as Glenn jumped ahead 4-0 but Stigall answered with four points of her own.

Okolo and Foka had a free throw each, then Foka hit two buckets off passes from Lee and Okolo had a putback and it was an 8-0 run and the Grizzlies never trailed.

Hays closed the score with two baskets by Stigall and a pair of free throws by Pimentel to trail 14-11 after a quarter.

Glenn had an 11-3 run to open the second quarter with Okolo and Lee scoring four points each , Foka adding a bucket and Mariah Houston hitting a free throw.

Hays was unable to get into their system as Glenn enjoyed the inside efforts of Okolo and Foka with the ball handling of Lee, Marissa Hernandez, and Houston to set and hold the tempo of the contest.

In other local games, Evie Bruce had 16 points and 10 rebounds while point guard Gabby Munday scored 10 points as Liberty Hill raced past Leander.

Cadence Williams poured in 27 points to lead Rouse past Lehman 52-21. Lilly Coronado scored 14 points for Lehman.

Top-ranked Class 2A Johnson City had a wild win as the Eagles out-scored Mason 3-2 in overtime to claim a 45-44 win.

Carly Norton and Madi Hacker led the Eagles with nine points each and Hacker scored two points and Caylee Corpus hit a free throw for the Eagles winning overtime points.

Three other Eagles had seven points each in a balanced attack that improved Johnson City to 17-1 overall.

Anna Marie Whitworth led Mason with 12 points.

Taylor beat LaGrange 66-45 despite 19 points by Leopard Campbell Cooper and 12 points by Kylie Trlicek.

Cara Homer added seven points for LaGrange while Kaylee Holmes chipped in five points and Tori Hand scored two points. Taylor improves to 9-7 overall and 3-0 in district play.

Smithville blasted Manor New Tech 73-27.

Savio beat Founders Classical Academy 44-24 while San Antonio Randolph edged Hyde Park 40-37.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Glenn, Liberty Hill, Johnson City take key district girls hoops wins