Burnet girls basketball beats Taylor

CAPTION: Burnet senior guard Sarah Cullison makes the most of her final home appearance. Photos by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

The Burnet High School girls basketball team defeated Taylor 37-28 Feb. 3 for its first District 24-4A win of the season.

The Lady Dawgs followed that with a loss to Jarrell 56-21 Feb. 6.

Against Taylor, head coach Kim Payten said the Lady Dawgs put it all together.

“I thought we played very well,” she said. “I have to say this. It started falling apart in the third quarter, and I subbed five (players), and they were all the kids that I had just moved up. And we were behind by four points, but it was turnover after turnover after turnover. So I subbed all five and I normally don’t ever do that. And those kids came in calm, cool and collected. They didn’t do anything amazing, they just stayed the course and brought the score to a one-point difference.”

The Lady Dawgs who were on the court fired up their teammates, Payten said, and she felt a change in the energy.

“The kids that are normally the starters were chomping at the bit, and then I put them back out and they just took care of business,” she said. “Those girls stepped up and I couldn’t be more excited about our future.”

The coach noted the Lady Dawgs who stepped on the court as reserves have “a lot of” chemistry led by senior guard Lezlee Rhoder, who were all on the junior varsity last season.

The other important element is that each team is learning Payten’s playbook, “so it shouldn’t be that new to them,” she said.

“They worked really hard in practice to make sure they knew exactly what we were doing,” she said. “I told them, ‘I’m not promising you guys playing time. But if it comes, I need to be confident that y’all know what’s going on.’ They worked very hard to convince me and they did a good job of it all through practice. It helped us a lot.”

The coach pointed out the Lady Dawgs also had “two great practices” leading up to the contests.

Payten summed up the Jarrell game.

“Jarrell is pretty good,” she said. “We had senior night, and it was just a lot going on. They were trapping on the corners and just attacked us on every corner just like they were supposed to do.”

After the game, the seniors looked at their teammates and officially passed the program to them.

“In the locker room, they kind of summed it up by saying guys, ‘This is all about y’all,'” Payten recalled hearing. “‘Y ‘all have to turn this around. Y’all can’t go backwards.'”