his one didn’t just feel like a loss, Olivia Pyburn said.

Her Lady Bronchos had been through those. This brought a different sting.

After a step forward, this one felt like two steps back.

The Odessa High girls basketball team struggled through a 56-30 defeat against Midland High on Friday night at the Chaparral Center, capping a winless first go-round through the District 2-6A schedule and sending the Lady Bronchos on their way back down I-20 still in search of answers.

But it wasn’t the result that frustrated Odessa High’s head coach. It was how it happened.

“The energy and the effort wasn’t there,” Olivia Pyburn said moments after the game.

Odessa High had battled rival Permian to a one-possession finish earlier in the week, fighting to the bitter end in a boiling rivalry meeting that Permian won 33-30.

But, Pyburn said, the fire and energy the Lady Bronchos brought to that tight rivalry contest was absent in Midland on Friday night.

Midland High led 31-12 at halftime and cruised the second half, to send Odessa High to 0-5 in district play.

“The first half, we saw little effort and no heart, which results in consistent turnovers. We had too many at halftime,” Pyburn said. “Second half, there were some moments where we did some great things, but we really did not come ready to play tonight.

“I felt we were, just because of the performance that we had against Permian. That was a complete game that we put together, and the energy, the effort, the heart was there. We just didn’t carry that over to Midland High.”

Three Midland High players hit double figures in scoring, with Quay Webster scoring 12 while Maya Duarte added 11 and Jurnee Williams finished with 10.

Odessa High was led by Skylar Herrera, who finished with eight points, but she couldn’t make enough of a difference for the Lady Bronchos. Herrera knocked down a shot at the buzzer to end the first quarter, but even with that bucket, the Lady Bronchos still trailed 19-6.

From the beginning, Pyburn said her team didn’t show the energy it needed to compete with Midland High (20-10 overall, 4-1 District 2-6A).

“I can understand a loss if the effort is there,” Pyburn said.

“We have a few girls who give us everything they have every game. It’s just that, right now, we were very unbalanced tonight as a team.”

Friday’s meeting with Midland High marked the halfway point of Odessa High’s 10-game district schedule. The Lady Bronchos will play through each of their district foes again, starting Tuesday, when Odessa High hosts Amarillo Tascosa at the OHS Fieldhouse.

“We’ve just got to focus on us,” Pyburn said.

“We’ve had a chance to play everybody now, and there’s not a surprise to what each team is going to do. We’ve just got to do a better job defensively, and execute offensively.”


