Clear Springs wins Peggy Whitley Classic

COURTNEY LATHAM

In round two of the battle of the two top teams in the area, Clear Springs came out on top again against Manvel. In pool play at the Texas Invitational, Manvel lost to Springs by 10 and although the Chargers didn’t shoot the ball exceptionally well in the second meeting, they still came away with one point victory. Much of the Chargers success comes from the fact that they have one of the best point guards in the country, Brooke “The Chosen One” McCarty however it doesn’t stop there. Kaylin Roher, JoAnn Lira, Ryshinique Bell and Courtney Latham have probably the most impressive starting five in the area.

The thing that’s so unique about Clear Springs is that they can hurt you in many ways, a prime example is the fact that they weren’t nailing the shots I’ve seen the make as consistently as before, they are so unselfish and feed off of each other. McCarty was hurt last season and Roher and Lira picked their games up. Bell was carrying the team earlier this season on offense and although undersized playing the five, she gets the job done in their system.

Against Manvel R2, the gym was so packed that I’m happy to use this phrase, “it was standing room only”. Come to think of it, it was like that in last season’s semifinals as well when Springs edged Elsik on a 35 footer at footer by Roher but on this night the points were coming in droves McCarty (23), Latham (16) and Roher (10) offset Manvel’s dynamic duo Brianna Turner (20) and Jordan Hosey (18) which was also one of the best games I’ve seen Hosey play as she simply went off. Two free throws by Roher sealed this one which set up the showdown against San Antonio Wagner

KAYLIN ROHER

Wagner edged a much improved North Shore team in the semis when Amber Ramirez nailed back to back threes for the victory. Although they lost  big to Manvel in the third place game, North Shore has almost knocked off TABC Top 25 teams in back to back weeks and they also have the satisfaction of knowing that Shilea Scott went down with a concussion and wasn’t  available the last two games which means anything is possible once playoffs start.

In going against what I just said, there was no way Wagner was going to win this game as they went down by double digits early, yet they wouldn’t quit. Down 17 in the third, Wagner made a 7-0 run to cut it to ten but it wasn’t happening as Springs pushed the lead back up to 20 in the final quarter winning the championship 50-39. Tesha Smith, Ramirez and Ashley Ross all had 10 for Wagner while McCarty led all scorers with 18 followed by Latham with 10.

I saw Latham’s dad a few weeks ago at an HBU game and told him that Courtney would leave here as one of the most underrated  players to ever play in the area so it was great to see her named MVP of the tournament because she does so many valuable things for her team. Hopefully the” All Greater Houston” folks pay a little bit more attention or get more reliable sources when the post season awards come around and yes I said it and yes I meant it because not only is some of this stuff sad, it’s ridiculous

JOANN LIRA