SAN ANTONIO – Last season, the UIL came down on Duncanville after the Pantherettes broke violations in the off-season. They were banned from any playoff participation and their coach was suspended. One year later and Duncanville is back at the state tournament and one win away from the program’s 12th state championship.
The Pantherettes nearly gave the game away in the fourth quarter as Humble Summer Creek forced overtime, but Duncanville outscored the Bulldogs 8-0 in the extra frame to clinch the 39-31 win during the Class 6A state semifinals on Friday at the Alamodome.
Duncanville – making the state tourney for the 27th time – will play in the 6A championship at 830 pm Saturday against SGP. The title game will be the program’s 18th while boosting an 11-6 record.
Their last title came in 2020.
They rank third all time in both appearances (27) and titles (11).
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Duncanville’s coach during the 2020 championship was former Pantherette LaJenna Howard. But she was put on a one-year suspension and Jason Rogers was interim coach. Meanwhile Neiman Ford was the boys assistant and helped that program to two titles since coming on in 2018.
Last April he made the leap over to the girls side and was named head coach.
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Seniors Mariah Clayton (18) and Chloe Mann (14) combined for 32 of the team’s 39 points. Both were McDonald’s All-American nominees. Mann will continue her career with Cincinnati.
Clayton scored on a driving layup with 2:24 left in overtime.
She added another layup less than a minute later and DV led 35-31.
Duncanville hit four free throws while Summer Creek missed all five attempts in the period. The Bulldogs were at state for the third time – all since 2019. They have yet to win a title. They had a new coach in Donny Ott, who previously coach at Cedar Park and North Crowley.
Ott led Cedar Park to back to back 5A titles in 2021 and 2022.
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Clayton went 7 of 13 from the field and had 3 rebounds and 3 blocks. Mann was 5 of 6 from the free throw line and had 2 assists and 4 rebounds. Overall, neither team shot the ball well as DV was 13 of 44 (29.5%) and Summer Creek was 11 of 41 (26.8%).
Zachara Perkins was SC’s leading scorer with 8.
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Summer Creek only led for 16 seconds the entire game while DV led for nearly 31 minutes. The Pantherettes largest lead was 11 at the 3:13 mark of the third quarter. Kennedy Simpson scored for Summer Creek that tied the game at 29 with 3:49 left in regulation. Clayton gave Dville a 31-29 lead about a minute later. Duncanville would play keep-away and hold on to the ball for over two minutes and even extend its possession while grabbing a couple of offensive rebounds.
However, they couldn’t pull away and turned it over.
Simpson got the steal and missed a layup, but Mariyah Brown scored on the put-back to make it 31-31 with eight seconds left. Duncanville missed one last attempt at the buzzer.
The Pantherettes led 12-8 after the first quarter and 23-14 at intermission.
Summer Creek got back in the game by outscoring DV 11-2 in the fourth quarter.
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