In the season finale Coastal Bend Women's Basketball hosted # 11 Trinity Valley. The Cougars struggled at finding a rhythm but turned it on late to finish with a 78-91 loss to the conference co-champs. Leading scorers were Savanna Smith with 26 on 5-5 from deep, Ari Gallardo and Asia Wheeler each came up with 12. In a season where Coastal Bend would rarely see a full roster on the court the Cougars finished 3-26 and 1-17 in a great conference. Coach Nate says "This team fought a lot of adversity and competed in a lot of games. We had about seven games where we allowed one quarter to hurt us bad, whether we could not score, rebound or get back in transition so many double digit deficit quarters really hurt us. Injuries plague every team and hurt everybody so that cannot be an excuse. We just never got in rhythm as the season progressed. In a conference with six teams being ranked nationally throughout the year, and six twenty win teams every single day you have to be at your best. I am super proud of the fight in the girls and in spurts we showed we could compete."
The cougars celebrated 11 sophomores between returners and transfers. In numerical order,
# 1 Yasmine Garcia from San Juan, Tx helped by playing significant minutes as PG in a few games this season, she transferred in from Allen County. She had a 3 assists game at TVCC.
# 2 Jharyn Craig who stretched the floor with the three. Transferred from Paris JC and scored 7 points on perfect shooting VS TVCC.
# 3 Miranda Lamb who cheered on the Cougars from the sideline this year and she was missed on the court.
# 4 Asia Wheeler who helped the Cougars reach most wins in two seasons as a returner and led the team in assists the last two seasons.
# 5 Cierra Zapata who was the hardest worker every single day the last two seasons.
# 10 Brenlee King who transferred in from Victoria was sidelined since October but rooted her team on all season.
# 11 Kavin Johnson transfer from Ranger who led the team in rebounds before being sidelined late in the year.
# 12 Savanna Smith who led the Cougars in scoring for two years and had a record breaking two years at Coastal Bend.
# 21 Ari Gallardo from Los Fresnos, Tx finished by averaging double figure points this season and shooting around 30 % from 3-point line in two years.
# 23 Jasonnia Burleson who had double figure rebounds a few times transferred in from Palomar College in California.
# 30 Leslie Martinez who had 25 to help beat Jacksonville at home from Edinburg, Tx.
The Cougars won 7 games in two years which matches the high for sophomore wins. They also won 3 conference games in two years which makes a conference win in each of the last four seasons. The Cougars also set marks in the record books. Savanna Smith leaves as all-time leading scorer (816) breaking Sam Atkinson-Roach previous record (689). Savanna Smith also leaves as points in a season
record holder with (442) beating Sam Atkinson-roach (405). Savanna did this in 50 games which is 10 less than normal due to COVID year 2020-2021. Also leaving with all-time assists record is Asia Wheeler (205) which took Dezarai Spencer (192).
"Thank you to all the girls for making this a memorable season." Coach Nate