Lampasas players Miranda Maceyra and Hailey Morrison (30) celebrate following the Lady Badgers 55-23 victory over Salado on Tuesday night. The win places the Lady Badgers into a tie with Salado for the third and final playoff spot in District 25-3A with only four district games remaining. PHOTO BY NICK FORRESTER Julie Mize wasn’t sure how to handle her nerves.

Once Tuesday’s game against Salado started, the junior guard said the butterflies in her stomach weren’t settling down like they normally do at the beginning of a contest.

“I was so nervous before this game because I knew we had to win this game in order to still have a shot at the playoffs,” Mize said. “I really felt like I was about to throw up or cry or something.”

When Mize told coach Jenny Bowden of her nervousness right before tip-off, Bowden told her to use that nervous energy and take it out on the court.

It took Mize an entire half to settle down. But once she did, she was able to use that nervousness to her advantage, scoring 11 points in the third quarter en route to a team-high 21 points.

“Sometimes we’ve got to go ‘Come on Julie, wake up,’” Bowden joked. “But when Julie wants to play, I mean, she can play. She decided that she was going to take that nervousness right to the net tonight, and that’s exactly what she did.”

Mize wasn’t the lone Lady Badger who said she was nervous before the game. But, whether anxious or not, the Lady Badgers were able to easily defeat Salado, 55-23.

“We just played awesome tonight,” Bowden said. “At the beginning of the game, the girls had that look on their face like they’d already been defeated, and I told them, ‘Girls, wake up,’ and they said, ‘We’re just nervous and excited right now.’”

Tuesday’s results certainly didn’t indicate the Lady Badgers (11-15, 3-3) were apprehensive. Right from the start, Lampasas showed that this game would be different than the first meeting between the teams - a 38-31 Salado victory.

“I don’t think Salado expected us to come out blazin’ tonight,” Bowden said. “I told the girls we needed to go out there with guns blazin’ tonight.”

As the Lady Badgers were building a 13-4 lead in the first quarter, Salado’s Carling Urben, who finished the first matchup between the two teams with 27 points and 15 rebounds, wasn’t a factor after she rolled on her ankle in the opening quarter.

That’s when Mize said she knew the Lady Badgers were going to win, and Bowden said the fun was going to begin.

“We tried to bring the intensity today, and everybody was clicking, everybody was contributing, and that’s a lot of fun,” Bowden said. “I told them this is fun basketball; this is how we’ve got to continue to play.”

Mize and Bowden both added that playing in front of the home crowd was a big help, and that it was possibly the difference between losing the first contest at Salado and winning this one at Badger Gym.

With the victory, Lampasas moves into a tie for third place in District 25-3A with Salado, as both teams stand at 3-3 with only four district games remaining.

Megan Mason scored nine points for Lampasas, while Juls Crook scored seven and Chasity Fields scored six.

The Lady Badgers, who have won three consecutive district games, will look to upset Liberty Hill - one of the top-ranked teams in the state – tonight.