Lakewood Ranch girls hold off Palmetto rush to reach region semifinal
It wasn't pretty, but at this time of the year aesthetics don't matter. It's all about living to play another night.
Lakewood Ranch will do just that after its 43-34 victory Tuesday over host Palmetto in a Class 7A-Region 3 girls basketball semifinal.
The Mustangs will travel to face Palm Harbor in the region final Friday with a berth in the State Final Four at stake.
Palm Harbor defeated previously unbeaten Strawberry Crest 66-56 in its semifinal.
It will be the sixth consecutive regional road game in two seasons for Lakewood Ranch (23-6).
The Mustangs lost in their district title game last season and played three games on the road in the region tournament before losing to Fort Myers in the final.
Earlier this season, Lakewood Ranch defeated Palm Harbor 61-54 on the road.
"We don't have a choice. It is what it is. We just want to play," Lakewood Ranch head coach Tina Hadley said. "We missed too many layups. I went into halftime and told them if we made our layups it would be a running clock."
Poor clock management, free throw shooting (6-16) and decisions leading to too many turnovers plagued Lakewood Ranch, not to mention a Palmetto team (22-7) that refused to fold and seemed to play with more intensity.
"Even through all the adversity and missing layups we still stuck to the game plan. We wanted to make them shoot over the top of our zone," Hadley said.
Lakewood Ranch handily defeated Palmetto twice during the regular season, but lost in the district final 48-44 with the Tigers rallying behind Tina Stephens, who had 22 points and 12 rebounds.
This time Lakewood Ranch's 1-3-1 zone collapsed on Stephens every time she had the ball, limiting her to 10 points and 13 rebounds.
Lakewood Ranch led 33-19 with less than 30 seconds to go in the third period and had the ball. Instead of holding it for the last shot of the quarter, the Mustangs rushed a shot and Palmetto responded with seven straight points to cut the deficit to 33-26 less than a minute to the fourth quarter.
Palmetto trailed 35-29 with 6:35 remaining when Lakewood Ranch forced three straight turnovers and two errant shots while scoring eight straight points on layups to put the game away at 43-29 with 2:50 remaining.
Kailyn Scully sparked the spree with two steals and two layups. LaDazhia Williams, Lakewood Ranch's 6-foot-3 center, came alive in the latter stages of the game with seven points from midway through the third quarter till the end to finish with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Kyra Klarkowski scored six of her 11 points in the second half.
With the Mustangs zone collapsing on Stephens, Palmetto strugglerd to shoot from long range converting 3 of 17 attempts from beyond the arc and 13 of 55 overall. Lakewood Ranch was 17 of 43 from the field.
"When you are trying to take a team to the next level there are some growing pains and tonight was one of them," Palmetto head coach Robert Kelly said. "You got to understand what you are up against and what your challenges are. We got eighty percent of the kids coming back and we will do well next year."
Guard Annisa Washington led Palmetto with 13 points and was the Tigers' only outside threat. Palmetto loses two starters to graduation, Taylor and Connor Rozier.
"You can't miss that many shots against a great team," Kelly said. "We rushed too many shots trying to get ahead of them instead of relaxing and playing the game and that is something you have to learn."
Alan Dell, Herald sports writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports.
This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch girls hold off Palmetto rush to reach region semifinal ."