Legacy girls upend Longview, 51-38

Published 1:36 pm Sunday, January 26, 2025

Just more than three minutes into Friday night’s District 10-6A girls basketball contest featuring teams with gaudy season records, Tyler Legacy was already up 10-0 on Longview.

That lead grew to 20 in the second quarter before Longview made a run to open the third quarter. The Lady Raiders eventually got back up by more than 20 points and held on for a 51-38 victory over the Lady Lobos inside Tyler Legacy Varsity Gymnasium.

“The first half, I don’t know if we could’ve played much better,” Tyler Legacy head girls basketball coach Ross Barber said. “And we talked in the locker room. We knew they were going to try to come out and go on a run. We told them we couldn’t do that, and they did. But I will say this, we bent a little bit but we didn’t break. They went on a run, but then we responded.

“I was proud of the effort. They’ve been playing really hard. Everybody on the bench contributed tonight, so that was good to see. It sets up a big one Tuesday.”

That game Tuesday will have the Lady Raiders (27-4, 9-1) going to Rockwall to face the Lady Jackets (20-11, 8-1), who are the only team to defeat Legacy in district play, 41-38 on Jan. 3.

On Friday, New Mexico State signee Senoj Jones scored nine of Legacy’s points in the game-opening 10-0 run. Bethany Baltes broke the scoring drought for the Lady Lobos with a jumper. She hit a 3-pointer in the final minute of the quarter for Longview’s only two made field goals of the first quarter. Legacy led 16-6 at the end of the first quarter.

The Lady Raiders went on a 14-2 run overall to get their lead to 28-8 before a Markayla Haynes triple for the Lady Lobos. Haynes made the only two field goals of the second quarter for Longview, which was 4 of 25 from the field in the first half.

Jones attempted her first field goal since 4:49 left in the first quarter with a turnaround jumper that connected with 22 seconds left in the half to give Legacy a 30-11 halftime lead.

Longview, which made just four shots the entire first half, made three quick buckets to open the third quarter. The Lady Lobos then had two free throws by Baltes for a 9-0 run to cut the score to 30-20. After a three by Legacy’s Holland Pine, Longview’s fourth field goal of the quarter came on a triple by Baltes with 4:53 on the clock.

Legacy then answered with an 8-0 run to end the quarter to push the lead to 41-23.

The Lady Raiders got the advantage to 46-25 before a Baltes three guided a 9-0 Longview spurt that trimmed the score to 46-34 with 2:25 remaining.

Jones had 16 points, six rebounds, four steals and two blocks for Legacy.

Baltes led Longview (19-6, 4-5) with 15 points and four steals.

Other scorers for Legacy were Pine 10; DeCailey Bailey 8; Shanaya Shaw and Zareya Ceasar 4; Nichole Baldwin 3; and Grace Mills, Zion Smith and Jaida Sanders 2. Smith had seven rebounds. Baldwin had four rebounds and four steals. Shaw had three steals and two blocks, and Mills had three assists.

Other scorers for Longview were Jailiyah Rockmore 9; Mya Ward and Haynes 5; and Terri Sparkman and Trinity Huey 2. Sparkman grabbed five rebounds.

Longview will host Rockwall-Heath on Tuesday.