TYLER — For fans of Trinity Valley basketball, the first two games of the Region XIV basketball tournament have been fun ones to watch.

For coach Elena Lovato, there is still work to be done following a 92-53 win over the Angelina Roadrunners Friday afternoon in semifinal action at UT-Tyler’s Herrington Patriot Center.

With the win, the No. 1-ranked Lady Cardinals are now 31-1 overall and face the winner of the Blinn vs. Jacksonville matchup Saturday afternoon for the tournament title.

“I mean whoever wins they are both great teams and we look forward to playing either one of those teams,” TVCC guard Shannon Smith said.

Lovato: “They are two very well coached teams and it is going to be a battle to the end no matter who we face. I am sure it will be a good game no matter who we play and we are looking forward to a good game tomorrow.”

In the first seven minutes of the game, the Roadrunners looked like they would make a game out of it as they trailed, 9-6, on a fast break layup by TVCC’s Krystle Henderson with 13 minutes remaining in the half.

“I think we came out flat on the offensive end in the first seven minutes,” Lovato said. “He (Byron Coleman) came out in a man-to-man and I thought he would come out in a 2-3 zone. As soon as they got into that 2-3 zone, we seemed to find our flow and it caught us off guard at first that they came out in the man-to-man.”

“I think we are really pumped up and excited to get out there,” Smith said of the slow start. “I think sometimes we get too hyped up and maybe in the first couple of minutes we get to excited. We are going to work on that for the next game and hopefully come out stronger.”

Anglina then put together a 7-4 run over the next four minutes to tie the game up at 13-13 on a jumper by Areana Davis with 8:20 remaining in the half.

Lovato was forced to play without the services of guard Savannah Carter over the final seven minutes of the first half as she got in foul trouble with three fouls.

“Savannah had three fouls at the half and that kind of threw us off,” Lovato said. “She is kind of my utility kid as I try to keep her on the floor. It was kind of weird to not have her out there  and we could not get our flow going early on.”

TVCC held as much as a 17 point lead in the first half of play as Roddricka Patton found Smith for a fast break layup with TVCC up, 34-17, with 2:09 remaining in the half.

The Lady Cards defense held Angelina to only 26 percent shooting in the first half for a 37-21 lead at the break.

In the second half, the Lady Cards picked up the pressure in outscoring Angelina, 55-32, to secure the win.

Lovato said there were two statistics that stood out to her in the game.

“I don’t like that we gave up 23 offensive rebounds in the game and that we had 18 turnovers,” Lovato said. “I don’t think we did a very good job of making the high percentage play and I thought we tried to be a little too fancy in transition. We tried to force it inside too much tonight in the game.”

TVCC 92, ANGELINA 53

ANGELINA: Eliqua Brooks 4-11 1-2 10; DeAnna Waters 3-10 2-4 9; Areana Davis 2-5 4-4 8; Diamond Webb 3-14 0-3 7; Demetria Foreman 2-15 2-2 7; Lexi Harris 3-6 0-0 6; Tatiana Stevens 1-3 2-3 4; T'Neshia Smith 1-3 0-2 2. Totals 19-67 11-20 53.

TRINITY VALLEY: Shlonte’ Allen 7-14 0-0 16; Shannon Smith 6-15 1-1 16; Krystle Henderson 5-12 0-1 13; Savannah Carter 5-7 2-3 12; Kyhonta Doughty 3-4 5-6 11; Adut Bulgak

4-7 2-2 10; Roddricka Patton 3-6 0-0 8; Julianne Anchling 2-4 0-0 4; Dominique Brooks 0-0 2-4 2; Victoria Wells 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 35-71 12-17 92.

Angelina    21    32    —    53

Trinity Valley    37    55    —    92

3-point goals —Angelina 4-21 (Demetria Foreman 1-7; Diamond Webb 1-6; Eliqua Brooks 1-5; DeAnna Waters 1-2; Areana Davis 0-1), Trinity Valley 10-26 (Krystle Henderson 3-7; Shannon Smith 3-8; Roddricka Patton 2-5; Shlonte Allen 2-6). Fouled out — Angelina-Lexi Harris, Trinity Valley-None.

Rebounds — Angelina 42 (T'Neshia Smith 10), Trinity Valley 47 (Victoria Wells 7; Savannah Carter 7). Assists —Angelina 9 (Eliqua Brooks 3), Trinity Valley 19 (Shannon Smith 6).

Total fouls — Angelina 17, Trinity Valley 21.

Technical fouls —Angelina-None, Trinity Valley-Savannah Carter.

A-300