Bronze beauty COURTESY PHOTO BY STEPHANIE COWEN Lady Marlins pose with the third-place trophy they won last week at the Granger Tournament. Front row, from left, are Kalani Balcom, Reba Armanovs, Jenna Socha and Megan Forrest. Back row, from left, are Abby Kenigsberg, Anna Roberson, Missy Gilbreath, Rachael Phillips, Katelin Dupnik, Emily Scott, Chelsea Perez and Tarryn Murray. The Lady Marlins’ record is no longer perfect, but Coach Stephanie Cowen said after the ladies’ first loss at the Granger tournament last week, the tournament was good for the team.

On Thursday, Dec. 3, the girls faced the Taylor Lady Ducks, plucking them to the tune of 51-37.

Katelin Dupnik led the scoring with 22 points, followed by Rachael Phillips with 9 and Reba Armanovs with 8. Tarryn Murray put in 5, Chelsea Perez scored 4 and Emily Scott rounded out the scoring with 3.

Scoring by quarters
        1  2  3  4  F
PA  13 14 18 6 51
THS 7  8  2 20 Going for it STAFF PHOTO BY STEPHANIE KENIGSBERG Rachael Phillips goes after a loose ball during a game against the Taylor Ducks. The game was played during the Granger tournament Dec. 3-5. 37

On Friday, Dec. 4, the girls came up against the Vandergrift Lady Vikings of Leander ISD and were unable to do the same with them, ending up on the short end of the 43-33 score.

The Lady Marlins hung on for a 19-19 tie at halftime but scoring suffered in the third quarter and the girls were unable to make up the deficit in the final period.

Murray led scoring with 11, and Phillips followed closely with 10 to round out the double digits. Perez and Abby Kenigsberg each put in 4 points and Dupnik and Scott hit for 2 each.

Scoring by quarters

The next day, Saturday, Dec. 5, the Lady Marlins faced the Granger Lady Lions for third place in the tournament and came away victorious, 49-36. They took an early lead in the first quarter and never relinquished it, earning the thirdplace trophy for the tournament.

Murray led the scoring with 16, followed by Dupnik with 13 for the doubledigit scores. Philips and Armanovs each came up with 8 points and Emily Scott put in 4.

Scoring by quarters

The Lady Marlins returned home with a 10-1 record for the year. Cowen said the team is better for having played in the tournament, though obviously disap- pointed at the first loss of the season.

“They exposed some of our weaknesses that we need to continue to work on,” she commented. “Personally, I was proud of the way the kids responded to the loss. We talked about coming out strong in the next game (against Granger), and we did exactly that and ended up winning third place. Throughout the entire tournament we faced teams that just wouldn’t go away. They continued to fight back in games when we had leads or increase leads when we came close to tying it up. I think that was also a good experience for us. We learned how to handle those runs. We saw some many different looks defensively; I can’t help but think that will benefit us down the road.”

The girls’ next venture will be to the Best of the Bay Tournament in Aransas Pass. The round robin format tourney begins today, Thursday, Dec. 10, and runs through Saturday, Dec. 12.

The Lady Marlins’ first opponent will be Taft in a game that starts at 1:30 p.m. today. Then, at 4:30 p.m., the Lady Marlins will take on Incarnate Word Academy of Corpus Christi.

The Lady Marlins play only one game tomorrow, at 4:30 p.m. against Aransas Pass.

Saturday’s match-ups start at 9 a.m. when the Lady Marlins take on Agua Dulce. They’ll wrap up play at 1:30 p.m. against Odem.