Lady Leps Celebrate Senior Night in Style; And Then Win the District Title
The La Grange girls basketball team had quite a finish to their regular season.
Friday the Lady Leps beat Giddings 55-37 in a tiebreaker for the district title.
That vaults the La Grange girls (who have a 28-7 overall record) into a first round playoff matchup against Lake Belton (which has a 19-10 overall record and was the fourth play finisher in District 19-4A). That area round game will be Tuesday Feb. 15 at 6 p.m. in Rockdale. The winner faces the Jasper/Waco Conally winner.
Friday’s triumph over Giddings in that tiebreaker for the district crown came on the heels of a celebratory final home game Wednesday.
In that contest, the final game in Leps gym for the team’s three seniors (Aysia Grant, Lyric Sampson and MaKenna Mitchell), La Grange bashed Austin Achieve 65-8.
La Grange led 33-0 at halftime and the Lady Leps were up 42-0 in the third quarter before Achieve banked in a threepointer with 1:30 left in the third quarter.
Nine of the 10 Lady Leps scored in this one with Grant leading the way with 19.
“It was sad,” said Grant about her final game at Leps Gym. “I’m not ready to put my purple and gold up yet but at least we have playoffs so we have a little more time.”
Grant is a four-year member of the varsity.
“Back when I was a freshman I was terrified. I was passive, scared to shoot,” she said. “My sophomore year I got a little more comfortable but then as a junior and senior, those were my years.”
Keslyn Davis and Tori Harold each scored 10.
Sampson scored seven. Rachel Matocha had six.
Mitchell scored five.
“It was a little emotional,” Mitchell said of Wednesday’s home finale. “I just wanted to stay focused and have a good game in my last one on this court.”
Prior to Wednesday’s game, head coach Heath Golan gave each of the three seniors a note.
“We almost all started crying when we read it,” Sampson said.
“It was a reflection-type note, talking about how it all started for them in basketball from little dribblers or watching older siblings play and then to middle school,” Golan said. “When you think about all the girls that started with you in seventh grade and now you’re the final three. I felt really proud of them for sticking it out because this is one of the most physical sports –the fact that they persevered makes it special.”
And they still have some basketball to go.
“We want to go farther than we did last year,” Sampson said. “Teamwork will be the key.”
2/9/22
La Grange girls 65,
Austin Achieve 8
La Grange 16 17 11 21 – 65
Achieve 0 0 3 5 – 8
LG scoring: Grant 19, Tisdell 2, Harold 10, Gonzalez 4, Sampson 7, Ehler 2, Mitchell 5, Davis 10, Matocha 6.
2/11/22
La Grange girls 55,
Giddings 37
La Grange 16 14 16 9 – 55
Giddings 5 10 11 11 – 37
LG scoring: Aysia Grant 18, Keslyn Davis 12, Lyric Sampson 8, Katelyn Allen 7, Camille Gonzalez 3, Alicia Tisdell 2, Tori Harold 2, Makenna Mitchell 2, Emma Ehler 1. Record: Lady Leps are 28-7