Lady Hornets take bi-district trophy with big game from Carbajals

The Lometa Lady Hornets (13-6) earned their first bi-district championship under coach Frank Reyes III with a 66-41 victory over Gustine on Saturday.

The Lady Hornets will advance to area to face Iredell, a district champion that earned a firstround bye. At press time, the area championship was scheduled, tentatively for Feb. 16, but winter weather was likely to postpone that.

Lometa has won five straight games. Iredell (22-2) was ranked No. 11 in last week’s Texas Girls Coaches Association poll and No. 21 in the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches poll.

Sisters Claudia Carbajal and Janette Carbajal combined for about two-thirds of Lometa’s scoring. Claudia started strong, with 13 points in the first quarter, and Janette hit double-digits in the fourth quarter.

Most of the first half was close, with the two teams separated by less than 10 points.

“The first three quarters, they battled; they kept it close,” Reyes said. “We were giving up some easy looks…The second half we took away a lot of the inside shots,” and Gustine “may have gotten a little tired, too.”

Gustine pressed on defense early on, but the Lady Hornets were able to break through.

The Lady Tigers “started going box-and-one on Claudia, and we ran a few plays to run her off of some screens and things like that,” Reyes said. “We started bringing them out and forced them to go from zone to man. That’s when Janette really stated taking advantage.”

Gustine was called for fouls only 10 times the whole game, and free throws were few and far between for Lometa in the second half.

The Lady Hornets made six threepointers -- five by Claudia Carbajal and one by Shyanne Tower.

Iredell is coming off a 39-25 win over Blum. The winner of this area round will face either Priddy or Lingleville.

Leading scorers

Claudia Carbajal 25

Janette Carbajal 20

Shyanne Tower 11

Emily Andrade 6

Jasmine Gama 2