[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\nSachse head girls basketball coach Donna McCullough describes senior forward Arianna Gregory as calm and level-headed and says she has a knack for making timely plays at the most important junctures of a game.<\/p>\n
So, at a time when the Lady Mustangs were struggling on offense during the second half of Tuesday night\u2019s non-district road game against Plano East, Sachse turned to Gregory to get her team out of a slump. Gregory scored the final five points of the quarter and later added the go-ahead layup and two free throws in the ballgame\u2019s final 14 seconds, rallying the Lady Mustangs from a 10-point deficit for a 42-38 win.<\/p>\n
Gregory finished with 17 points, nine coming in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a senior. That\u2019s her job,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cShe\u2019s calm. She\u2019s cool-headed. She\u2019s great for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the two teams battled to a defensive-minded 13-13 halftime tie, Plano East stole the momentum early in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
A good example of the Lady Panthers\u2019 offensive efficiency in its high-low game was a play initiated by senior guard Christine Cua. Cua dribbled the ball on the left side of the court, and she found freshman Olivia Woods open near the free-throw line. Woods was on the receiving end of a Cua pass, and she buried a jump shot to give Plano East a 28-18 lead with 3:50 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Woods poured in 11 points.<\/p>\n
Plano East also received a great all-around game from senior forward Nariah Witherspoon, who scored from both near the basket and behind the arc, including six of her 12 points during a crucial third quarter that rallied the Lady Panthers from down 12-5 to a 28-18 lead.<\/p>\n
All of that success on offense came despite the Lady Panthers playing without five-star recruit and sophomore guard Arianna Robinson, who missed the game because of an illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst half, our defense was great,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cWe held them to 13 points. We were just stagnant offensively and had to figure some things out. Then, we got a little movement in our offense and got some different looks, and it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Effort plays played a key role in helping Sachse complete the rally. Sophomore guard Trinity Thompson missed a step-back jump shot, but she was quick to track down her own miss. Thompson burst through the right side of the court, beat every other player to the loose ball and made a putback attempt to give the Lady Mustangs a 38-36 lead with 1:40 left in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Thompson\u2019s impact was felt throughout the game. She carried the offensive load for Sachse in the first quarter by scoring seven points and went on to lead all scorers with 20 points. Her efforts come less than a year after a lower-body injury sidelined her for the second half of district play and Sachse\u2019s two playoff games.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrinity is an exceptional player,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cHer potential is through the roof. She can do almost anything she likes. She works really hard for us and comes up with plays that we can never imagine her doing. She\u2019s fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Plano East tied the score at 38-38 on a pair of Madison Bankhead free throws, Sachse retook the lead for good with a Gregory layup. Then, on the ensuing possession, Sachse senior Addison Hodge made a defensive play that helped to ice the victory for the Lady Mustangs. Hodge sprinted toward Cua, who was dribbling the ball near the sideline, and forced Cua to dribble the ball off her body and out of bounds for a turnover.<\/p>\n
Gregory was then fouled and sank two free throws with 3.2 seconds left for a 42-38 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were actually trying to foul because we had two fouls to give,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cShe was going to try to go for the ball and try to foul. It actually worked out in our favor. She did her job. She did what she was supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sachse senior forward Arianna Gregory goes up for a layup during the second half against Plano East on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-55817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}