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Short-handed DeSoto girls complete district sweep of defending state champion Duncanville

Matchup of top two teams in Dallas area is marred by third-quarter fight.

DESOTO — Missing its head coach and two of its best players, the DeSoto girls basketball team completed a two-game district sweep of bitter rival and defending Class 6A state champion Duncanville on Saturday afternoon.

DeSoto, ranked No. 1 in the area, No. 2 in the state and the No. 20 team in the MaxPreps national rankings, was without head coach Andrea Robinson, who missed her fourth straight game because of COVID-19 contact tracing. DeSoto was already without three-star Texas Tech pledge Michayla Gatewood, who is out with a torn ACL, and just a couple of minutes into Saturday’s game, star junior guard Ja’Mia Harris was injured and did not return.

But DeSoto didn’t miss a beat, building a 19-point third-quarter lead and surviving a late Duncanville rally for a 69-60 win on its home court.

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“Losing Ja’Mia Harris was a huge deal. That’s our leading scorer,” said Kadi Creel, a DeSoto assistant who has filled in as head coach while Robinson is out. “The way our kids battled and responded from that adversity, I’m really proud of them.”

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Harris, a second-team all-area selection last season after averaging 15 points, had her right knee wrapped in ice as she sat on the bench, but Creel didn’t think it was a severe injury that would sideline Harris for long. Junior guard Jiya Perry stepped up in Harris’ absence and scored a game-high 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds as DeSoto (18-1, 10-0) increased its lead in District 11-6A to two games with four games to play by sweeping second-place Duncanville (21-2, 8-2), ranked No. 2 in the area, No. 3 in the state and No. 23 in the nation.

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DeSoto, the 2019 6A state runner-up, avenged a 47-43 third-round playoff loss to Duncanville last season. But the game was marred by a fight that broke out in the third quarter and resulted in one player from each team being ejected and a fan who came out of the stands and got involved in the melee being handcuffed and escorted from the arena by police.

The game was completed after a delay, but the incident occurred nearly three years after the boys basketball teams from the same schools were involved in an ugly postgame brawl.

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“As far as the fight happening, it’s unfortunate,” DeSoto ISD athletic director Larry Davis said. “You’ve got two highly competitive teams, emotions took over. They made poor choices, so they were ejected.

“As far as us considering not continuing the game, that discussion never came up. I think our security and police from both DeSoto and Duncanville did a fantastic job getting everything de-escalated.”

Davis doesn’t think there will be punishment for the teams as a whole going forward. But UIL rules state that any players who are ejected from a contest must also miss the following game.

“The rivalry has always been really intense,” Creel said. “When you have the top two teams squaring off, sometimes things like that just happen. It’s unfortunate.”

Duncanville coach LaJeanna Howard declined to comment.

In February 2018, a brawl between the Duncanville and DeSoto boys teams after the end of a game at Duncanville’s Sandra Meadows Arena led to DeSoto choosing to forfeit its final two regular-season games and Duncanville opting not to forfeit any games. Both teams and both head coaches were issued two years probation and a public reprimand by the UIL State Executive Committee.

Duncanville returned four of the five players who started last season’s 63-47 win over Cypress Creek in the 6A state championship game, a win that gave the Pantherettes their 11th state title — third-most in UIL history. This summer, Duncanville added Kiersten Johnson, a 6-3 transfer from Plano Prestonwood who is ranked as the third-best player in Texas in the Class of 2022.

SMU signee Zaria Rufus and guard Tristen Taylor combined for 23 points, but Duncanville was overmatched inside and had no answers for DeSoto’s three dominant 6-footers, who are all ranked among the top seven recruits in Texas in the Class of 2022.

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Four-star junior Sa’Myah Smith, a 6-4 forward who is coming off a torn ACL that ended her sophomore season, had 15 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks. Kentucky pledge Tionna Herron, a 6-4, four-star junior post player, had 11 points and 11 rebounds, and 6-3 four-star junior forward Amina Muhammad added 14 points and seven rebounds.

“We have great guard play, we have great shooters, but when their number was called, our bigs stepped up,” Creel said. “I think [Smith] had a slow start to the year, just getting her legs back under her, but she’s progressing and going to the next level. I think she’s ready to carry us.”

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