Abilene High, Sweetwater girls basketball teams endure tough starts

The Sweetwater and Abilene High girls basketball teams are similar in many ways.

For starters, neither will be more athletic than many of their opponents in their respective classification.

Both will rely on defense, hard work and smart play to be successful this season – and even then, the odds will be stacked against them.

Yet comparatively speaking, the Class 6A Lady Eagles were bigger, faster and simply too much for Class 4A Sweetwater down the stretch Monday at Eagle Gym.

After hanging with AHS for a little more than a half, the Lady Mustangs were outscored 32-5 in the last 1½ quarters in a 59-26 Lady Eagles victory.

Ariana Trevino led AHS (4-8) with a game-high 19 points, and Shaliyah Christian-Stevenson had 12. Trevino hit four of her team’s nine 3-point goals. Sweetwater had just 11 field goals total – one from 3-point range.

Madison Solis and Hanna Vera led the Lady Mustangs (0-6) with five points each.

It was a six-point game (27-21) early in the third quarter, before AHS got on a roll and pulled away.

It was good to get a win, but the Lady Eagles and first-year coach Brenda Andress are trying to get better before hitting District 2-6A play in less than three weeks.

“We’re really trying to focus not so much on the scoreboard but on getting better every single game and being successful every single day,” Andress said. “Whether we’re up or down, we’re looking at all the little things – are we hustling hard, are we getting the loose balls, are we boxing out and getting rebounds?

“At the end of every single game, if we can say we improved, then that will add up and they’ll keep getting better and better.”

Andress, who hadn't been a head coach until this season, takes over an AHS team that won just 16 games total the previous two seasons, including four last season. The Lady Eagles haven’t been to the playoffs since 2019, going 2-10 in district each of the past two years. Ye,t she has four returning players, including three starters, and that experience will give her team a shot at ending that playoff drought.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Andress said. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love. First of all, we have an outstanding coaching staff around me who all work really hard. It’s totally a team effort.”

Andress said her players make her job easier.

“I love being around these young ladies,” she said. “They’re just a fun group to be around. That makes it worth every minute of it.”

This team doesn’t have its spectacular playmaker, K.K. Roberson, who finished her high school career last season.

Andress, though, said her team has made up for the loss by spreading the wealth offensively.

“Teams don’t know who to guard,” she said. “If you guard one, others step up. I think they’re starting to work the offense. They’re understanding if we’re patient and hit whoever is open within the offense, we’ll get open looks.”

Up to now, that’s been the Lady Eagles’ biggest problem – being patient and moving the ball for the open shot.

“Early on, we were struggling to get open looks,” she said. “We were taking shots early in the offense. We’re starting to get in the paint more. We’re starting to get inside out more. We just have to start hitting those shots, and that just comes with more time in the gym.”

AHS has endured lopsided losses this season, including a 42-15 setback to Wylie in the season opener and an 89-24 loss to Lubbock Monterey.

Yet, Andress said her team has persevered, and it doesn’t get much easier for the Lady Eagles with games against Class 3A No. 4 Jim Ned (11:30 a.m. Saturday at Eagle Gym) and a scrappy Cooper team (Nov. 30 at Cougar Gym).

“(Monterey) was a tough loss, but a couple of girls in the locker room afterward said, ‘Coach, I felt like I got better this game.’ That’s all you can ask,” Andress said. “They’re staying together and they’re staying positive, so I think good things are going to happen.”

Sweetwater endures

As hard it’s been for AHS in the early going, it’s been tougher for Sweetwater.

And like AHS, the Lady Mustangs have had some painful, embarrassing losses – 52-19 against Breckenridge and 54-11 against Stephenville.

Yet, the Lady Mustangs have kept fighting for first-year coach Thomas Robinson, a 21-year Army veteran.

That’s not to say they don’t get frustrated from time to time.

“In the heat of battle, we all do,” Robinson said. “Do they do a pretty decent job of masking it and just getting out there and fighting? Yes, but every now and then you can see it in winces in their faces. It’s just what it is. It’s the heat of battle, but they continue to fight.”

Robinson takes over a Sweetwater team with only four returning players from a 9-16 team a year ago that went 3-7 in district and missed the playoffs.

He has only one player with any real starting experience in 5-foot-10 junior Jenika Fuentes, but she went down with an injury early in the season opener.

“Kind of a tough kid,” Robinson said of Fuentes. “She gets in there and mixes it up quite a bit.”

Robinson said his team misses her toughness.

“The first two games, definitely we feel like we would have been in (it) and won if we had her on the floor,” he said. “It’s been a challenging stretch, but our girls are staying with it. They’re fighting. It’s about learning.”

Sweetwater is small and usually out-matched athletically. But the Lady Mustangs do hustle, and, at times, they play really smart.

Robinson, whose team plays Early on Nov. 30 in Sweetwater, said they just don’t have the overall experience to play well instinctively on the fly.

“I think that’s what we’ve been missing – that basketball sense,” he said. “Trying to develop it during the season, that’s quite the challenge. If you don’t play basketball all the time, you’re not going to have that basketball sense or wherewithal. But our girls are fighting. As long as they’re fighting, I’m OK with that.”

Joey D. Richards covers Abilene high schools and colleges, Big Country schools and other local sports. Follow him at Twitter at ARN_Joey. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.

NONDISTRICT

Abilene High 59, Sweetwater 26

Sweetwater … 6 … 11 … 5 … 4 – 26

Abilene High … 10 … 13 … 22 … 14 – 59

SWEETWATER (0-6) – Madison Soles 2 1-5 5, Marissa Garcia 0 0-2 0, Alissa Garza 2 0-0 4, Kate Hall 1 0-0 2, Aunisti Griffin 3 1-4 7, Kendall Daniel 1 0-1 3, Hanna Vera 2 1-2 5, Karleigh Adames 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 3-14 26.

ABILENE HIGH (4-8) – Evelyn Cantu 2 0-0 4, Zikyria Samia Cooper 2 0-0 6, Ariana Trevino 7 0-0 19, Myra Thomas 0 0-0 0, Shaliyah Christian-Stevenson 4 1-1 12, Amayah Starks 3 1-2 7, Samara Padgitt 1 0-0 2, Grace Jordan 0 2-4 2, Alexis Dolton 3 2-4 8. Totals 22 6-11 59.

3-Point Goals – SW: 1 (Daniel), AHS 9 (Cooper 2, Trevino 4, Christian-Stevenson 3). Total Fouls – SW 10, AHS 15. Fouled Out – None. Technical Fouls – None.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene High, Sweetwater girls basketball teams fight adversity