Lady Mustangs gear up for playoffs

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HALLETTSVILLE — Needing either a win or a loss from Yoakum or Schulenburg to automatically qualify for the playoffs, the Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs traveled to Hallettsville to face their toughest test of the district season, taking down the eventual district champions.

Although the scoreboard didn’t read in Nixon-Smiley’s favor — Hallettsville won the District 27-3A title with a 56-21 rout — head coach Scott Jones believes that ending the season with a top-notched team like the Lady Brahmas will help the Lady Mustangs in the long run.

“It’ll get you ready for whoever you face in the playoffs,” Jones said of the game. “It’s good that we end with these guys so it’ll prepare us going into the playoffs. It’ll be good in the long run.”

After going up 5-4 early on, beating Hallettsville’s full-court press, the Lady Brahmas’ offense was too much to handle as they ended the quarter on a 18-3 run to go up 22-8.

Turnovers were a problem for the Lady Mustangs. Even after breaking Hallettsville’s press, passes within the arc were either tipped or just off target. The Lady Brahmas took advantage, scoring on those turnovers.

Celeste Arriaga led the team in scoring with 14 points. Lexi Trammell had four while Faith Pullin scored two points.

Even with the loss, the Lady Mustangs clinched third place as both Yoakum and Schulenburg lost their matchups and will have to play a fourth-place tiebreaker. Nixon-Smiley awaits the results of tiebreakers as Industrial, Palacios and Edna ended their district season all tied at 8-2. Industrial took on Edna to determine third place last night, though results were unavailable before press time. The winner takes on Palacios tonight for the district title. Whoever loses in tonight’s matchup will go on to face Nixon-Smiley in the bidistrict round. 

 District 27-3A   
  W L %
 Hallettsville 13 1 0.929
 Marion 12 2 0.857
 Nixon-Smiley 8 6 0.571
 Yoakum 7 7 0.500
 Schulenburg 7 7 0.500
 Luling * 4 9 0.308
 UC Randolph 3 11 0.214
 Stockdale * 1 12 0.077

*Game not reported

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