The Nocona Lady Indians got to put the exclamation point on the end of district play Tuesday at home on senior night.
The Lady Indians took down rival Bowie 49-31 to cap off an undefeated run to their second straight district title.
The Lady Rabbits came in wanting revenge after losing earlier at home as well as a shot at getting the second seed with a win. Avenging two of its three losses and riding a four game win streak, Bowie came in with a lot to play for even with Nocona already wrapping up the district title the previous game.
The Lady Rabbits came into the game with a different defensive strategy to try and shut down the Lady Indians top scorer Averee Kleinhans.
A few weeks earlier the team had had success shutting down Childress’ top scorer using the box-diamond defense, assigning one player to prevent that player from getting the ball while the rest of the team plays zone defense.
Early on Bowie scored on some fast break opportunities and were up 6-3 midway through the quarter. After a timeout, the Lady Indians spread the floor and had Kleinhans set up in the post. When a shot would go up, Kleinhans would fight to get the offensive rebound and scored on a couple of putbacks.
After that, Nocona found ways to get the ball in her hands despite the pressure and use that to the Lady Indians advantage. Several shots at the rim were set up off a double team coming at Kleinhans. She eventually hit a step back 3-pointer the defense could not do anything about to send the message home.
Nocona ended the first quarter on a 10-0 run to go up 13-6 heading into the second quarter. Bowie had trouble knocking in any shots from the perimeter. Shots inside the arc were even tougher as the Lady Indians did everything to make getting shots off inside difficult.
The game was pretty rough on both sides. While Nocona was getting to the free throw line a bit more than the Lady Rabbits, the official were letting both teams play quite. Bowie could not make up any ground as the Lady Indians led by double-digits 24-14 at halftime.
With the low scoring nature of the game, Nocona started running the clock when not pressured in the opening minutes of the third quarter. This forced the Lady Rabbits to extend their pressure out to half court and opened up the rest of the court for ball handlers Trystin Fenoglio and Kleinhans to distribute.
The Lady Indians had their best offensive quarter while Bowie continued to struggle. The Lady Rabbits got some good news despite the lead continuing to grow. Kleinhans picked up her fourth foul near the end of third quarter and was forced to sit.
While Bowie was down big 39-22 heading into the fourth quarter, if the Lady Rabbits were going to make up any ground it would be with her on the bench.
Bowie came out with a press defense. This worked a bit as the Lady Rabbits started the quarter on a 7-2 run. Bowie continued to force turnovers and extra possessions to end the game, but just could not turn all of those into points.
Nocona closed out the game with a lot of free throws, winning 49-31.
Bowie earns the third seed for the second straight season and will face another tough district runner-up from district seven. This year its Peaster played at 6 p.m. at Graham High School on Feb. 17. Nocona plays Tolar at 6:30 p.m. at Springtown also on Feb. 17.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.