Lady Dawgs pull off last-second win against Waco

By SEAN HANEY

Cove Leader-Press

On Tuesday night, the Lady Dawgs hosted the Lady Waco Lions. With this being the Lady Dawgs’ first home game of the season, they were looking to make an impact and fast. 

For the majority of the game. the Dawgs had the lead and weren’t making too many mistakes. But the Lions were not going to roll over and give up without a fight, though. The Lions came back from a 13-point deficit and took a 3-point lead with under a minute left. 

With hard work and determination, the Lady Dawgs built enough momentum to overcome that small hole and come out on top. 

The Lady Dawgs won 45-44 as time expired on the clock. Bringing their record to 3-2. 

Coach Derik Short took over the Lady Dawgs this past offseason and his main goal since arriving has been to establish stability.

After the game was over, Coach Short said that his gameplan for every game is the same thing every night which is, “We want to get better at our execution. We constantly preach to the kids, it’s about the process, you have to execute what we’ve taught you to execute. And how well we execute determines what’s up on that board right now.

“We had a 13- point lead. And we ended up being down one, which shows that we didn’t take care of the process. We didn’t execute like I would like for us to do so, we got to get better every game.” Short commented. 

“I think it’s I think it’s valuing possessions,” Short said about the learning process for Tuesday’s game. “We had too many offensive possessions where we didn’t, we didn’t get value for our shots,” Short said. 

Something Short did say that needed work was getting in-the-paint points and the free throws 

“We missed too many layups. We missed one out of every two free throws that we shot. When you’re in double bonus, you’ve got to knock down free throws, and so it’s little things, a layup here, it’s a free throw there. It’s a foul down there.” 

“Toughness” is something Short said he wants to instill in the Lady Dawgs. 

“I want us to be mentally and physically tough and sometimes mental toughness can push you through it, especially in a game like this. 

“Even if you’re not executing well, if you continue to play hard and play with passion and play with intensity, as you saw at the end, sometimes the ball falls your way and good things happen,” Short said before heading out of the gym. 

#24 Lean Sanchez Perez had 10-points, going 4/12 on field goals, 1/5 on 3-point shots and 1/2 on her free throws.

#25 Elianah Smith also had 10-points, going 3/10 on field goals, 0/2 on her 3-point shots and 4/6 on her free throws. 

#10 Shakaira Zeigler had 8-points, going 3/11 on field goals, 2/6 on her free throws

#12 Taylor Wilson had 8-points, going 2/6 on her field goals, and 4/7 on her free throws.