[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\nThe Plano East girls basketball team got off to a fast start last Friday thanks to a high-pressure defense that forced several turnovers. While Plano West countered with several runs to make it a close game at times, the Lady Panthers\u2019 quick start proved too much as Plano East cruised to a 69-57 home win.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of their push was actually in the second quarter when we had some confusion on defense,\u201d said head coach Derrick Richardson. \u201cWinning third quarters are a big emphasis for us. We actually held West to five third-quarter points and nine total points in the first 13\u00bd minutes of the second half, so that was great.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also talk a lot about the fact that basketball is a game of runs, and often our opponents will have a run. Our job is to weather the storm and respond in the right way. I feel like we did a good job of that Friday night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Hailey Reed set the defensive tone for Plano East (10-6 overall, 2-0 District 6-6A). On Plano West\u2019s first offensive possession, Reed perfectly timed a run to the ball, getting her right hand on a pass intended for a Lady Wolves player, then dribbled up the court for a layup and a quick 2-0 Lady Panthers lead.<\/p>\n
Plano East\u2019s defense continued to overwhelm Plano West. Sophomore Arianna Robinson converted another Lady Panthers\u2019 steal into a layup, giving Plano East a 19-4 lead with 2:05 left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Robinson finished with a team-high 30 points. Reed added 10, followed by eight each from Nariah Witherspoon and Sicily Jackson and seven from Christine Cua.<\/p>\n
Just when it appeared Plano East might run away with the game, Plano West settled in and took advantage of the Lady Panthers\u2019 over-aggressiveness on defense. The Lady Wolves cut their deficit to 22-14 with a 3-pointer from the left corner in the final seconds of the first quarter and later to 22-19 after a layup with 5:16 left in the opening half.<\/p>\n
However, the Lady Panthers showed patience on offense. Plano East played a selfless style, making extra passes to free up teammates for open shots. Robinson gave Plano East a 36-26 halftime lead with a steal off a scramble and a subsequent layup, and the advantage grew to 39-26 after Cua made a 3-pointer in the opening minute of the third quarter. The Lady Panthers put the game away in the last minute of the frame, with a steal and layup by Jackson pushing the lead to 52-31.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, Plano East rode a 25-7 third-quarter run to a dominant 56-33 road win over Princeton in the district opener for both teams. Plano East led 13-10 after the first quarter and 22-17 at halftime. Robinson finished with 22 points, followed by 11 from Witherspoon and seven each from Reed and Madeline Bankhead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the way we played in the second half,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cI feel like we came out at the beginning of the game a little flat, and we settled for a lot of jump shots. We picked up the energy in the third quarter and had a good second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plano East is scheduled to host McKinney Boyd (9-1) at 5:30 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano East sophomore Arianna Robinson (11) scored 22 points in the Lady Panthers\u2019 56-33 win at Princeton on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-80948","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\/80948","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=80948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}