Stonewall —  

A little inspiration went a long way for Stonewall girls coach Christie Jennings in Tuesday night’s 39-31 victory over Coalgate at the Murphy-Roberts Gymnasium.

Jennings had a spirited heart-to-heart discussion on the bench with junior guard Haley Snell after Snell committed an early turnover, then watched her score 10 first-half points to help the Lady Longhorns (ranked No. 16 in Class A) to a 19-12 lead at intermission. And back-up center Lacy Walker, who spent her sophomore season playing for Coalgate, had a huge night off the bench against her old school, scoring a team-high 16 points (12 in the second half) and grabbing a career-high 15 rebounds in the victory.

“Haley is probably the best athlete we have on the team — I just have to get her motivated sometimes,” Jennings said after seeing her club win its second straight game to improve to 19-4.  “Lacy has a lot of respect for the Coalgate program, but I think that made her want to beat them even more.”

Snell, who went to the bench just over a minute into the game after Stonewall’s second straight turnover, returned with 2:31 left in the first quarter and the Lady Longhorns trailing 5-2.  She promptly drained a long jumper off an assist from Bradianne Daniel on an inbounds play, and she added a lay-up off a feed from starting center Breann Gipson at the 1:20 mark to put Stonewall in front for the second time in the game at 6-5.

Tandra Elkins, whose 3-pointer with 4:25 left in the opening quarter had given Coalgate (10-10) its first lead at 3-2, was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 1.3 seconds left in the opening quarter and hit two of three free throws to send the Lady Wildcats to the second period with a 7-6 lead that lasted less than a minute.

Walker, whose first offensive rebound of the night (she had six in the game) kept alive the three-shot possession that ended with Snell’s first basket, gave Stonewall the lead for good with a putback of an offensive rebound just 53 seconds into the second quarter to ignite an 11-3 run in a span of less than four minutes.

Snell took a pass from Daniel and drove to the basket for a lay-up with 6:30 left in the half to make it 10-7, and after the last of Coalgate’s three straight turnovers over the next 1:26, she drove the right side of the lane and drained a baseline jumper at the 4:50 mark to extend the lead to five.  Elkins, who scored a game-high 17 points in the loss, hit her second 3-pointer of the night from the left wing 30 seconds later to briefly make it a two-point game, but back-to-back baskets by Cheyanne Miller — a point-blank jumper off an assist from Daniel on an inbounds play and a 3-pointer from the right corner off a Snell assist — over the  next 61 seconds put the Lady Longhorns in front 17-10.

Two free throws by Brooklyn Hughes with 2:18 left in the half pulled the Lady Wildcats to within five, but Snell capped her big first half by driving the baseline for a lay-up with 55 seconds left to send Stonewall to the locker room with a 19-12 lead.  Coalgate closed to within five on three separate occasions in the third quarter — the last on a layup by Elkins after an offensive rebound and assist from Luci Palmer with 4:25 left — but couldn’t get closer.

Walker turned three offensive rebounds into points in the quarter — a layup with six minutes remaining, two free throws 23 seconds after Elkins’ bucket, and a putback of her own miss at the 3:17 mark — and closed out her team’s scoring in the period with a layup off a nice feed from Kimberly Helms with 2:33 left to give the Lady Longhorns their biggest lead of the night at 31-20.

Elkins hit a running one-hander in the lane to beat the buzzer and trim Stonewall’s lead to nine heading to the fourth, and a 3-pointer by Palmer with 6:34 to play pulled Coalgate to within six at 33-27.  The Lady Wildcats as close as six once more — at 35-29 on a pair of Elkins free throws with 2:40 left — before Gipson (who spent a big chunk of the game on the bench in foul trouble) hit two free throws 46 seconds later, then Helms added two more charity shots to offset an Elkins runner with 48 seconds remaining.

Snell took only two shots (both misses) in the second half but grabbed three of her four rebounds after intermission to help Stonewall to a huge 34-16 advantage on the boards.  In fact, Walker had more rebounds at intermission (8) than the seven registered by the entire Coalgate team, and the Lady Longhorns scored 10 points off seven offensive rebounds in the game.  

Miller had three assists, three rebounds and two steals to go with five points in the win; Helms scored all four of her points in the second half and added four rebounds, two steals and an assist; and despite her foul trouble, Gipson had five rebounds, two blocked shots and two assists to go with four second-half points for Stonewall, which finished a solid 16-for-34 from the field.

Elkins — who had three steals, three rebounds and two assists in addition to her game-high point total — was the only real bright spot for the Lady Wildcats, who hit just 9-of-35 shots in the loss.