Boerne High had two goals in mind Saturday when the No. 12 Lady Greyhound basketball team hosted No. 3 Fredericksburg.
First, Boerne wanted to defeat the Battlin’ Billies to split the season series and move into a tie for first place.
Secondly, the Lady Hounds wanted to protect home court. They hadn’t lost a game at home all year and they certainly didn’t want to drop one at Greyhound Gym to their archrival.
Mission accomplished on both fronts after Boerne rallied past the Battlin’ Billies in Saturday’s contest, 37-35, to move into a tie for first place in 28-4A.
Boerne and Fred are both 8-1 in district. Boerne is 28-4 overall and closes out the regular season Tuesday at Wimberley, while Fredericksburg hosts Bandera. If Boerne and Fred both win. they’ll end up at 9-1 and will have split their two games to tie for the 28-4A title.
They’ll either have to flip a coin or play it out to break the tie to decide seeding for the playoffs. BHS coach Amy Ruede said she isn’t sure what she wants to do at this point and is more focused on Wimberley.
“It was huge but we have to look at what we have left,” she said. “We can’t have a Fred hangover at Wimberley.”
Boerne closed out each half on Saturday with a strong performance and that proved to be the difference in the game.
Fred was up 20-12 with 3:00 until halftime but BHS went on an 7-0 run to end the second after Averi Aaron hit a pair of free throws and a 2-pointer, while Abby Smith drained a 3-pointer and Boerne was only trailing by a point at the break, 20-19.
“We didn’t play very well in the first half and for us to only be down by one point …,” Coach Ruede mused. “We knew that if we could clean some stuff up it would be a different game in the second half.”
Boerne’s run continued into the third quarter after they scored the first four points on two Aaron buckets and the Lady Hounds had gone on a 11-0 spurt to bridge the second and third quarters and taken a 23-20 lead.
Fredericksburg ended Boerne’s run with a 2-pointer to break a scoring drought of 4:15 and make it 23-22.
After a Jamie Ruede bucket bumped Boerne’s lead to 25-22, Fred scored the next four points and pulled ahead, 25-26, but Liz Fox answered with a 2-pointer for the Lady Hounds and BHS was up 27-26 to enter the fourth quarter.
The Battlin’ Billies tied it and then built a four-point lead at 35-31 with 3:14 left. Fred slowed it down a bit, but didn’t go into a full four-corner stall and Boerne was able to come up with some turnovers and rebounds on some Battlin’ Billies possessions. Fred didn’t score in the final 3:14 of the game.
“I was surprised that they didn’t go into their stall game, we had been prepared for that and had been working on it,” Coach Ruede said. “Our defense stepped up and made some great plays and we finished; it was nice.”
Jamie Ruede was clutch down the stretch and scored the team’s final six points to carry them over the top.
Ruede hit a 2-pointer and the lead was down to two at 33-35. After Fred missed, Boerne came up with the ball and Ruede hit another 2-pointer to tie it up 35-35.
After Fred didn’t score on its next trip down the court, Boerne had the ball with a minute left. Coach Ruede said they wanted to kill the clock and take a late shot but allow for an offensive rebound so they ran the clock down before calling a timeout.
“That last play, we were trying to get to 10 (seconds on the clock) but (Jamie) felt like she had it,” Coach Ruede said.
Sure enough, Jamie Ruede pulled up for a short jumper and sank it with 15 seconds on the clock and Boerne was up, 37-35.
Fredericksburg still had some time to work with but Boerne’s defense didn’t allow them to get a good look at the rim and the Lady Hounds prevailed.
Ruede’s last three buckets were all short jumpers from the right side of the court.
“They were calling offensive fouls so we talked about stopping to shoot the jumper and she did in transition,” Coach Ruede said. “We’re a quality basketball team and our kids are skilled and played great defense. For us to execute and get it done is big, it was ugly but we were able to win at home and we haven’t lost at home all year.”
Aaron led the team with 15 points, Ruede finished with 11, Fox had 7, including a big 3 in the third, and Smith nailed a 3 in the second quarter and tallied 4 points as only four BHS players scored in the game.
Aaron grabbed 19 rebounds and also came up with 4 steals and a block.
Vs. Canyon Lake
Boerne won last Tuesday’s game at Canyon Lake, 67-32.
Jamie Ruede shot it well and finished with 30 points, Averi Aaron added 18, Hannah Rocchio had 6, Karson Kurtz tallied 4, Liz Fox and Jordyn Lemm both scored 3, Abby Smith recorded 2 and Leila Johnson hit a free throw.
Aaron grabbed 11 rebounds, Lemm collected 7 boards and 4 assists, Ruede came up with 5 assists and 3 steals.
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