There was a stunner in girls basketball Tuesday.
It was the movie “Hoosiers” come to life.
Gordon, a Class 1A school that has an enrollment of 75, went on the road and beat Class 6A Plano West 49-42 in overtime. Plano West is the state’s third-largest school, with an enrollment of 5,337.5.
“It’s a big win, of course, to go beat a big school,” Gordon coach Matt Garnett said. “But hopefully, more than anything else, it kind of continues to develop a real belief in what we are doing and we’ve got a chance to continue to get better as we go.”
Garnett, who is in his first year as Gordon’s coach, said the team celebrated by going to Whataburger.
“We try to talk about let’s enjoy all these different pieces to the story, and last night was one of those that we wanted to make sure we took a little minute to kind of smell the roses and enjoy the moment,” Garnett said.
High School Sports
The matchup came about because Garnett was a reference for someone trying to get a job at Plano West.
“This summer, when I got here to Gordon, I think coach [Kelli Bagley] got the Plano West job, similar timing,” Garnett said. “I was a reference on a person that had applied for an assistant’s job for her. Through that conversation, we talked about needing games and talked about the idea of it would be a neat thing for us to get to come out there and play them.”
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Gordon, located about an hour’s drive west of Fort Worth, plays six-man football and was the 1A Division I state champion the last two years. Its girls basketball team lost in the second round of the playoffs last season, while Plano West was 11-24 and missed the playoffs.
Garnett said that his daughter, junior point guard Faith Garnett, hopes to play college basketball. But for most of the team, basketball isn’t the only sport or activity they are involved in.
“We’ve got several multi-sport kids,” he said. “The core of this group won the state track meet last year on the girls side. It’s a really unique group. We have five that are cheerleaders.”
Plano West used to be one of the elite programs in Texas, winning a state title in 2006 and reaching the state semifinals in 2014. But its only trip to the playoffs in the last eight seasons ended with a first-round loss in 2024.
Gordon outscored Plano West 13-6 in the fourth quarter to force overtime, then used a 14-7 run in overtime to win it. That dropped Plano West to 1-3, while Gordon improved to 5-0.
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