ESPN

Plano West doesn’t have the star power it did last year, but the level of play hasn’t dropped off for the Lady Wolves.

Closing in on the midway point of district play, Plano West (19-5, 6-0) sits alone in first place in 8-5A despite graduating almost all of its leading scorers from a year ago.

The team hasn’t replaced the scoring output of Alexann Yancey or Jacqueline Jeffcoat with single players, but instead has used a long bench of mostly underclassmen and team play to post an equally impressive 2011 campaign.

Yancey and Jeffcoat both scored more than 15 points per game last year. No player this season is averaging double digits. Rachel Wilson, the lone returning starter, is the closest at 9.6 points per game.

“If you look at our stats, we don’t have any one averaging double figures, which is sort of unusual for us,” said Plano West head coach Don Patterson. “We usually have one or two. It’s pretty spread out, which is good. Nobody knows who to guard.”

Although it lacks returning starters, Plano West has a number of returning lettermen, including Mackenzie Boyd, Paige Womack, Kiran Lakhian, Stacy Lee and Bridget Dorn, to give the team depth.

“We had a good core coming back,” Patterson said. “They were all on varsity last year and got pretty good minutes most of the time. They came in this year as the veterans of the group. They’ve been good leaders for us.”

And Plano West has kept winning. Ranked No. 5 in the ESPN Dallas Class 5A girls rankings, its five losses have come against state powers or out-of-state teams at tournaments.

Patterson said the only adjustment he’s had to make with the new roster is playing a slightly more up-tempo game because the team doesn’t have the height at post it had in the past.

Sophomore guard Breanna Hayden has Dallas Lincoln cruising through District 12-4A play.

Lincoln (15-2, 4-0), No. 5 in ESPN Dallas’ Class 4A girls rankings, has jumped to the top of the standings after dominating wins over Dallas Bryan Adams (72-27) and Dallas Woodrow Wilson (71-30), which are tied for second place.

Hayden, the younger sister of current Baylor standout Kimetria Hayden, leads Lincoln with 14.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.

Fellow guard Camesha Turner has impressed as well, registering 13 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game, giving Lincoln one of the more potent backcourts in the area.

The 12-4A schedule is loaded with important games this weekend as the halfway point of district play approaches.

Lincoln hosts fourth-place Dallas Conrad (13-6, 3-2) on Friday while Bryan Adams (13-6, 4-1) and Woodrow Wilson (13-8, 4-1) will break their second-place tie Saturday.

Irving MacArthur's Alexis Jones is picking up where Odyssey Sims left off a year ago.

Sims, currently the second-leading scorer at Baylor, became the first MacArthur athlete to have her number retired last spring. The MacArthur girls basketball team was 120-25 in her four varsity seasons.

Jones, a 5-foot-9 junior, is making sure the Lady Cardinals (23-2, 9-0 in District 6-5A) don’t experience a slide, leading the team in scoring (21.0) rebounds (8.8) and assists (6.3.) She is No. 4 nationally in the ESPNU rankings for the class of 2012 and No. 2 among point guards.

MacArthur is No. 2 in the ESPNDallas.com Class 5A Top 10. Its only losses, to Klein Collins and DeSoto, have come in tournaments.

With Jones and Sims together a season ago, MacArthur advanced to the finals of the Class 5A Region I tournament. But Sims was sidelined by a torn ACL in the opening minutes of the Lady Cardinals’ loss to Cedar Hill.

With Jones tallying 22 points, senior Karmyn Jackson chipping in with 12 and junior Ayriel Anderson adding 11, MacArthur on Monday defeated Grapevine, 69-43, to remain unbeaten in district play. Its three previous district wins all came by at least a 50-point margin.

Three of the Lady Cardinals’ top four scorers are juniors.

MacArthur faces a difficult road test against Euless Trinity (19-5, 5-2) -- currently third in 6-5A -- on Friday at 6:30 p.m.

With the District 15-4A girls basketball competition now in the second round of games, Lancaster is clinging to a share of the lead with Mesquite Poteet.

Lancaster (19-5, 8-1 in 15-4A) travels to Corsicana for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff Friday.

The Lady Tigers squeezed past Forney, 36-34, last Friday. Lancaster’s backcourt of 5-foot-6 senior guards Bianca Fisher and Daisha Hurst contributed 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Lancaster’s only district defeat came at the hands of the Poteet Lady Pirates, 55-46, in Mesquite on Dec. 17.

Lancaster, No. 9 in the ESPNDallas.com Class 4A rankings, will host No. 7 Poteet in a rematch Jan. 28.