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Brooks Drops 46pts, Dragon's Hold Off Furious Rally

By Denique Williams, 11/17/21, 8:45AM CST

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Round Rock holds off Anderson High in a wild non-district match-up...

@DeniqueWilliams

Austin, TX-

Anderson high school faced off against Round Rock Tuesday evening in a non-district showdown that would see Dragon’s senior guard Jae’lyn Brooks with an eye-popping scoring performance, and the Trojans rally from a near 20-point deficit, that would fall just short.

Credit to the Dragons, clinging to a 1-point lead late in the 4th quarter, 64-63, they were able to prevail and did so without ever losing their lead.

Kicking off the first quarter the Dragons quickly took the lead with nine points in the first quarter for senior Jae’lyn Brooks who made his first 3-point shot two minutes into the game. After that first taste there was no slowing him down however as he went on to sink seven impressive 3-pointers before the half, putting RoundRock up, 40-21. When both squads returned to the court Anderson returned looking like a completely different team.

Senior point guard, Mike Wagner, led the charge with an opening 3-pointer that would go on to give Anderson the inspiration to bludgeon Round Rock an astounding 12-point run in six seconds.

When asked about his strategy for making such an impressive turnaround Anderson head coach Daniel Pittsford said, “The big story at halftime was that we have to make more difficult for them to take shots”. This new focus on defense in addition to a strong offensive front coupled with a relaxed attitude from Round Rock allowed Anderson to quickly bounce back. 

It didn’t last long however, as Brooks once again began to dominate the court as they reapplied their own defensive pressure. A resulting turnover was capitalized upon with a nice jump-shot by senior Reese Miller, who also had a solid game, scoring 11-points for the Dragons in total.

Anderson was still not done and with 2:53 left on the clock they went on to tie the game 58-58. It was all for not as they simply could not hold Brooks who went on to dunk and jump-shoot his team to a victory, ending his spectacular game with 46-points in total. 

When asked about his team's win Round Rock head coach Brent Murphy noted that this was still a teachable moment. “It’s good to have teaching moments after a win, they almost got us and there is a reason they are ranked at state…. We’ve got to get better at putting people away when we’ve got a lead,” Murphy said. 

Anderson’s furious rally fell just short, and when the clock hit triple zeroes, the Dragons had done just enough to register the win, 68-63.

Round Rock moves to 2-0 on the young season and will face Cedar Park this Friday evening. Anderson falls to 1-1 and will be in tournament play this weekend.