Junior guard Crystal Henderson scored 23 of her game-high 34 points in the first half Friday to lead the Kell girls basketball team to a 72-62 victory over visiting Sprayberry in a Region 6-6A matchup of top-10 teams.
Henderson scored 15 of the Longhorns’ 18 points in the first quarter, including a long 3-pointer at the buzzer as fourth-ranked Kell (20-2, 13-1) built an 18-14 lead that steadily grew from there.
The victory avenged a 82-65 loss to Sprayberry on Jan. 7 that snapped the Longhorns’ 12-game winning streak to open the season. It also left the teams in a virtual tie for first place in the region with one loss each, although Kell has played one more game. Barring an upset loss by either team in the final week of the regular season, Kell and No. 9 Sprayberry (15-6, 12-1) will finish in a first-place tie, with the No. 1 seed for the upcoming region tournament to be determined by point differential or a coin flip.
“The first time we played them, we just did not show up,” Kell coach Kandra Bailey said. “We did not play Kell basketball. Our girls have some fight in them, and they were disappointed in how they played in that game, so they wanted to come out and make a difference tonight.”
Henderson’s star counterpart for Sprayberry, Flau’Jae Johnson, got off to a slower start but finished with 32 points. Twenty of those came in the second half, but they weren’t enough to help the Yellow Jackets overcome a deficit that had reached 16 points by halftime.
Henderson and Johnson were first-team all-state selections last season. Johnson, a senior who has signed with LSU, was recently named a McDonald’s All-American.
Kell led 29-22 with less than three minutes remaining in the second quarter but closed the half on a 9-0 run and increased the lead to 41-22 when Jamiah Gregory opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer.
The Yellow Jackets changed tactics in the second half, bringing Johnson out to the top of the defense, hoping to use her 7-inch height advantage to slow down Henderson. It worked to some extent, as the Yellow Jackets held Henderson to one point in the quarter and cut a 19-point deficit to nine points by the end of the period.
However, Kell still led by 10 points midway through the fourth and got eight straight points on four layups - one by Jada Green, two by Henderson and one by Amaya Moss - for a 63-45 lead that put the game away.
“They changed their defense to a 1-3-1 at halftime,” Bailey said. “[Henderson] can shoot the ball, she can score from all three levels, but she also sees the floor so well that she’s going to find her teammates if she’s not getting her shots. And she’s going to give you aggression on defense, and that definitely helps because she’s going to do her job on both ends of the floor.”
Green finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Gregory had 12 points. Moss scored seven points and had nine rebounds, five steals and two blocks. Henderson also contributed seven rebounds and six assists.
Anna Vereen added 16 points for Sprayberry.
About the Author
