The Nocona Lady Indians won their first tournament early last week at Decatur playing against bigger schools.
The Lady Indians went 4-0 to win the championship despite coming into the tournament with only three practices and two games under their belts.
Nocona was the smallest school in the tournament and also, probably, the shortest team. That is nothing new for the Lady Indians dating back to last season.
Still, Nocona got tested right away with its game against 4A Canyon Randall. The Lady Indians led from the second quarter on before surviving a fourth quarter offensive explosion where both teams combined to score 46 points.
Nocona just held on to win by one basket 56-53.
Skyler Smith led the team with 23 points and 12 rebounds while Meg Meekins scored 22 points and had four assists.
The first day did not get any easier playing against 3A Wall. The Lady Hawks made a bunch of 3-pointers throughout the game that allowed them to keep up with the Lady Indians despite Nocona leading from the start again.
It was another high scoring fourth quarter where Wall made up some of the lead, but ran out of time against the Lady Indians’ ball control late in the game.
Nocona won another close game 72-67 to finish day one 2-0.
Meekins led the team with 29 points and six assists while Smith scored 21 points and grabbed a team high nine rebounds. Avery Crutsinger scored 11 points in the game as well while Reagan Phipps swiped a team high two steals and Aubree Kleinhans grabbed six rebounds.
The Lady Indians then had a rematch against 3A City View, a team they beat to begin the season only the previous week.
It went similar to that game, though Nocona slowed down the pace in the second half after building a double-digit lead in the first quarter. The Lady Indians played almost even the final three quarters and won 59-46 to qualify for the championship game.
Smith led the team with 22 points and 13 rebounds while Meekins scored 15 points and had four assists. Kleinhans and Phipps each scored six points.
In the championship game, Nocona faced the biggest school in the tournament, 6A Euless Trinity. The Lady Trojans featured taller, longer and more athletic players at almost every position and smother half-court zone defense that looked to feast on passes to the corner.
The Lady Indians were ready as they were making 3-point shots over the zone early on and built a 19-4 lead after the first quarter.
Even with Euless Trinity getting its offense into gear for the next three quarters, Nocona controlled the tempo and kept their lead up for the rest of the game.
With a double-digit lead, the Lady Indians utilized ball control stalling tactics in the second half to make the aggressive Lady Trojan defense pay for overcommitting.
Nocona won with little drama 56-40.
Meekins led the team with 24 points while Smith was second with 11 points while grabbing a team high eight rebounds a had five assists. Kleinhans scored 11 points while making three 3-pointers and Phipps scored six points on good cuts to the basket. Avery Crutsinger grabbed five rebounds while drawing several charges as the team’s undersized post player.
Meekins was named the tournament’s most valuable player and Smith was named to the all-tournament team to go along with the team’s tournament trophy.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.