(Schulenburg) — Clamping down with suffocating defense, the Navarro Lady Panthers kept Brookshire Royal off the scoreboard for the first 13 minutes of Friday night’s UIL Class 4A Region IV Area round match-up and never looked back in beating the Lady Falcons, 55-23 in Schulenburg.
After shutting out Royal in the 1st quarter, Navarro kept the shutout going nearly five minutes into the 2nd quarter before the Lady Falcons put any points on the board. The Lady Panthers scored the first 19 points of the game and finished the first half with a 26-8 lead.
Senior Tatum Harborth had 16 of Navarro’s 26 in that first half. Fellow senior Ryan Hepp had six at the break and played tremendous defense in the post against Royal’s 6′ senior center Diamond Barrett, who did not score in the game’s first 16 minutes.
The Lady Panthers would not slow down in the 3rd quarter. Time and time again, Navarro would break the Lady Falcon press and get the ball down court leading to layups for Harborth as she scored eight points in the quarter to push the Lady Panther lead to 26 by the end of the quarter.
Following the game, Navarro head coach Darrell Harborth talked about how his team was able to beat the press.
“We knew they were gonna press us some and when they fell behind they probably pressed us more than they normally do.” Harborth said. “And we’re pretty good at running our offense and Tatum got some points there, but we got it in quick and got it to her and their defense was sleeping.”
Tatum Harborth finished with a game high 26 points for the Lady Panthers. Hepp added 14 points on the night.
Royal’s Shun’teria Anumele, who came into the game as one of the top scorers in the state averaging 24.8 points per game, was held to 11 points. Harborth said they came into the game looking to slow Anumele down and they did what they set out to do.
“I’m pretty proud of the girls tonight. They executed the game plan well.” Harborth said. “As you saw, we shut them out in the 1st quarter and held them to 23. They have (one of) the leading scorers in the state and I knew she didn’t score 25 on her average because we held them to 23, so I’m pretty excited.”
With the victory, the Lady Panthers will move on to face the Fredericksburg Lady Billies in the Regional quarterfinals on Monday. Navarro will be looking for revenge after falling to Fredericksburg in two District 27-4A match-ups this season. Monday’s game will take place at the Littleton Gym at Blossom Athletic Center in San Antonio. Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m.