Seven Lakes fought for every second on Friday. 

No matter the odds, no matter what was in front of them, the Spartans fought and clawed their way to stay in their Region III-6A Semifinal, trying to overcome a strong Summer Creek team.

But in the end, the Spartans ran out of time and a strong comeback bid fell just short, with Seven Lakes season coming to an end with a 52-47 loss at the Campbell Center in Aldine. 

“I knew we wouldn’t give up,” said Seven Lakes head coach Doug Watson. “This team doesn’t have an ounce of give up. They did such a great job of coming back when the odds were stacked against them tonight. Even when Summer Creek was up double digits, these girls never gave up and they believed. We just ran out of time in the end.”

Summer Creek immediately jumped out to the lead in the first quarter, hitting two threes within the first minute of the game. The Bulldogs pushed that lead to 10-2 and didn’t let up, leading 16-6 at the end of the first.

The Spartans battled back in the second quarter and trimmed the Summer Creek lead to six midway through, but Summer Creek answered with some late buckets to still lead 24-17 heading into the half. 

“They are really long and they get hands in passing lanes and that makes it difficult to get the ball where we have been getting it all year,” Watson said. “It took us a little bit of time to adjust to that and eventually we did but we weren’t able to get it all the way back.”

The Spartans kept fighting, and kept trimming the lead but every time it would get to single digits the Bulldogs would have an answer. The Spartans trimmed the lead to 36-29 at the end of the third with a late Madison Carlton jumper and kept pushing in the fourth, Seven Lakes got it down to three with under a minute remaining in the game, but in the end Summer Creek made its free throws that it had to and closed it out.

It was the end of a historic season for the Spartans where they made it back to the regional tournament and demonstrated tons of resiliency, going on a huge 22-game win streak that stretched from December to the regional semifinals. 

“I’m incredibly proud of what these girls did this year, they bought in, they went on a huge winning streak and they got us back here to the regional tournament. They’re a very special group and it was awesome to see them come together as a team and play for each other.

Seven Lakes will lose a number of seniors to graduation after this year and like any program will need its younger players to step up. But that is what Watson knows any great team has to have, and the players that will come back next year are ready for the challenge.

“That’s how you become a good program,” Watson said. “The spring and summer is when basketball players are made and we talk to our girls about that. We are going to hit this offseason hard and hopefully this will be the standard that we try to strive for because all of us want to be a part of regional tournaments and state tournaments. That is going to be our goal.”

Region III-6A Semifinal

Points: (SL) Justice Carlton 31, Shreya Jategaonkar 12, Madison Carlton 2, Lenore Hudspeth 2; (SC) Kennedy Simpson 20, Zachara Perkins 15, Janiya Murphy 6, Mychie White 4, Taiya Kikunga 4, MychMariah Brown 3; 

Halftime: Summer Creek 24-17; Records: (SL) 30-9; (SC) 34-3