Sandies beat Lady Trojans, advance to Class 4A playoffs

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Originally published February 11, 2012 at 12:48 a.m., updated February 11, 2012 at 1 a.m.

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Calhoun won 20 games prior to Friday night, but the play-in victory over the Beeville was the biggest of the season.

In fact, it was the Sandies biggest in a decade.

Michelle Wagner scored a team-high 22 points, and McKenna Villegas scored 12 points in the fourth quarter to lead Calhoun to a 63-51 win over Beeville in the District 30-4A No. 4 seed tiebreaker game at the Victoria East gym.

"We just really wanted to go this year, and this was the game we had to win to get there, and we wanted it, so we did it," Villegas said.

With the win, Calhoun is in the playoffs for the third time in 26 seasons.

The Sandies play San Antonio Brackenridge in the Class 4A bi-district playoffs Tuesday in Gonzales.

Villegas ended the night with 21 points and senior guard Jayda Barton added 12 points. Beeville point guard Victoria Elizalde paced the Lady Trojans with a game-high 25 points.

Calhoun ended a 12-year playoff absence with the win. Prior to 2000, the last time the Sandies made the playoffs was 1987.

"This is what I've been working for my whole life, and this was the main goal for everyone on our team," Wagner said.

It did not take long for Wagner, a senior wing, to make her presence felt for the Sandies.

After the Lady Trojans won the opening tip, Wagner came up with a steal and took the ball the other way for a layup in the first 15 seconds. She scored eight of Calhoun's first 10 points.

"She knew she was our ticket to where we were trying to go," Calhoun head coach Sherman Chew said. "She did a great job stepping up and taking it to the next level. That's what a team leader should do."

The game was won in the paint for the Sandies. Calhoun out rebounded Beeville 32-27 and outscored Beeville 34-18 in the paint.

It appeared Beeville was going to dig itself out of a nine-point halftime hole in the third quarter thanks to cold shooting by the Sandies and a late 7-0 run by the Lady Trojans.

Calhoun made just 3-of-15 shots in the third quarter and Beeville cut Calhoun's lead to 45-41 going into the final period.

"We started taking a lot of outside shots, we weren't really focused on our inside shots," Wagner said.

But three quarters of constant ball pressure and the pounding by Villegas took its toll on Beeville in the fourth quarter and the Sandies were quick to take advantage of it.

In the quarter, Calhoun had no trouble throwing the ball into Villegas in the paint as the freshman post scored the Sandies' first four points of the quarter in less than two minutes.

"You can tell they were tired, and they weren't guarding any of the passes to anybody," Wagner said. "We kept getting all those inside shots."

"They couldn't really do anything, we were just working," Villegas added.

Villegas' presence underneath the basket forced Randi Maupin and Theresa Amador to foul out.

Maupin was Beeville's second leading scorer, averaging nine points per game, but was held scoreless by Calhoun senior post Sage Sexton.

In three games against Calhoun, Maupin scored a total of nine points.

Beeville scored only 10 points in the fourth quarter

With two minutes remaining, an Elizalde free throw cut the Calhoun lead to 10 points, but a turnover on the ensuing Beeville offensive possession cost the Lady Trojans a chance to cut the lead to single digits.

Wagner took the ensuing inbounds pass down the court for an easy layup to put Calhoun up 61-49 and ice the game.

"I knew if we could hold on to the lead going into the fourth quarter, I knew we would be OK because we would regain our focus," Chew said.

The win gives Calhoun a 21-12 record while Beeville finishes 18-15 overall.

Both teams finished with a 3-7 record in district and a season split forced the tiebreaker. In the regular season, each team won on its home court 55-50.

Calhoun now has the task of playing Brackenridge, the champion from District 29-4A. Brackenridge is 26-8, including a 16-0 district record, winning it's district games by an average of 34 points.