In the highly anticipated rematch from last year’s state championship game, the Lady Eagles defeated the La Vega Pirates 58-54 in a foul-heavy game. Argyle set the tone early and kept a lead going into the end of every quarter.

After last year’s UIL state championship loss left a bitter taste in Argyle’s mouth, the Lady Eagles relished the opportunity to create a different outcome this time.

“We’ve been wanting this for a year,” Coach Skip Townsend said. “They’re a tremendous basketball team. They played great and I’m so proud of my girls for responding big and winning because it took everything we had to do it.”

One of the biggest obstacles Argyle had to overcome was La Vega’s 6’4 center Erin DeGrate, but senior Delaney Sain kept her in check for most of the game.

“She’s a great player, and she was definitely a challenge,” Sain said. “Coach gave me a great scouting report against her and from last year I knew what to do.”

DeGrate scored 6 free throws and had a team high 12 rebounds, but was only 1-11 on field goals thanks to Argyle’s game plan.

“That’s kind of what happened last year,” Townsend said. “They called some fouls in there, there was a lot of pushing and shoving, and she made a lot of free throws, but Delaney went through our game plan, cut her left hand off, made her shoot and made it tough on her because you can’t stop her from getting the ball. We don’t have that much height, so we just tried to make her shots as tough as they could be and I think Delaney did an awesome job.”

As great as players like Delaney and senior Jesse Sheridan played, the clear-cut MVP was power forward Vivian Gray. Gray scored 36 total points, while also leading the entire game in rebounds with 13.

“I know what Vivian is capable of doing,” Townsend said. “Our girls know that too and they know where to find her. Our girls know where Vivian’s at, they do a great job at getting her the basketball and she usually finishes.”

Gray was consistent throughout the entire game, scoring 8 of the team’s first 10 points, as well as 11 in the fourth quarter.

“It was pretty easy for her to score some baskets,” Gray said. “Later on in the game, she settled for some shots that she doesn’t normally take because she was getting them pretty easily. We reminded her that she needed to go to the hole and they started fouling and getting us to the free throw line.”

Drawing fouls was one of Argyle’s primary goals coming into this game, and their plan worked to perfection, as three players for La Vega fouled out by the end of the game.

“We knew we had to attack the basket to get them in foul trouble and take their good players out of the game so they couldn’t play like they like to,” Gray said. “Our whole team just wanted to get back to the state championship.”

Despite Gray’s dominance, La Vega kept the game close right until the end, as they trailed by 2, with the ball, with four seconds left. La Vega tried to drive for a layup, but Sheridan was able to take advantage of a bad dribble and steal the ball to seal the game.

“It was kind of like slow motion when the ball bounced up, I just knew that if I could get that ball I was probably going to get fouled, and we could secure the game with only three seconds left,” Sheridan said. “The whole game I was just working hard and hustling, but I knew I needed that last hustle play to really secure it.”

With this victory, the Lady Eagles will advance to the UIL State finals with a shot at winning the ultimate prize.

“Our motto this year was to ‘Take the 3’,” Townsend said. “A lot of people think that means a 3-pointer but what it means is we wanted to win the district, the regional, and the state, and to do that we knew we had to go through La Vega.”