By Malcolm Butler
With leading scorers Allie Furr and Lizzie McAdams held in check offensively Tuesday night, head coach Gene Vandenlangenberg said he knew other Cedar Creek players were going to need to step up in order to win a tough district game on the road.
They almost did.
After Lillian Soto gave Creek a 36-34 lead with a layup with less than two minutes to play, Ouachita Christian answered with six straight points off of layups against the Lady Cougars press in route to a 41-38 win in Monroe.
“We got the lead late in the fourth quarter and they got a couple of buckets off of our (full-court) press. I think I’m going to regret (staying in the press),” said Creek head coach Gene Vandenlangenberg. “We probably should have backed off. I hated to do that because our speed did force some things. We kind of lived and died with it tonight.”
The game lived up to its billing. Creek (18-5, 5-1) had defeated OCS (21-4, 5-1) by 12 points a few weeks ago in Ruston. However, Vandenlangenberg and the Lady Cougars knew in order to win on the road they would have to come overcome adversity. The did time after time until the closing minutes.
“There were a couple of stretches where they got a six point lead and we fought back,” said Vandenlangenberg. “We kept fighting back. And we kept fighting back.”
With Furr limited to six points and McAdams to only three points, the Lady Cougars had to get offensive contributions from elsewhere. The did, but they came up just short.
“I was proud of how Allie and Lizzie kept their heads about them,” said Vandenlangenberg. “If you had told me that those two girls weren’t going to be either of our top two scorers tonight and we are going to have a chance to beat OCS on the road … that’s a good thing. It shows we aren’t just two dimensional. We have different girls that can pick it up and score some.”
Soto led Creek with 11 points and 13 rebounds while Leah Sutherland added 10 points and 11 boards. Elli Dickerson added six points.
However, the Lady Cougars just couldn’t knock down enough open shots despite getting plenty of good looks throughout the night.
“We had too many turnovers, I thought,” said Vandenlangenberg. “We had some opportunities on some open shots that we didn’t knock down. I told the girls we aren’t going to win a big playoff game or win district without someone else stepping up. In a close game that goes down to the wire, the team that makes the big shot or two shots at the end is going to win.
“That’s the difference between winning and losing. But I like to think the body of work to get to that point on the road … this is a tough place to play. It’s a great rivalry. They are a really good team. The girls did themselves proud.”
OCS led 9-7 at the end of the first quarter before Creek retook the lead and extended it to 20-15 on a Sutherland offensive rebound and putback with 55 seconds remaining before halftime. However, the Lady Eagles scored four straight points to close the half to trail only 20-19 at the half.
Creek started the third quarter slow, finding itself down 28-22 after a free throw on a controversial technical foul called for having six players on the court.
“I asked the official why he didn’t allow us the time to get the sub off the floor,” said Vandenlangenberg. “Our sub didn’t do a good job of communicating to her teammate that she was checking in for her but we were getting her off the floor.”
Despite the technical, the Lady Cougars closed the quarter strong on a Sutherland three-pointer and Soto layup to cut the deficit down to 30-29, setting up the final quarter of action.
Vandenlangenberg said his stressed to his team after the game was over that this one loss couldn’t affect the rest of the season heading into the playoffs.
“If we make this one game our whole season and get beat and then we come out Friday night and get beat, then that’s on us,” said Vandenlangenberg. “We have to embrace it. This was a game with two good teams in front of a packed house. It was a great environment and the game came down to the wire. I would rather have this game then beat somebody by 40 at this time of the year. We got better. The message was don’t let this one game be our season. Let’s bounce back and build upon this.”
Vandenlangenberg confirmed that if both Creek and OCS win out in district play thus tying for the regular season crown that the two teams would in fact play a neutral site winner-take-all game for the title.
“The (LHSAA) voted that the winner of the district gets a point,” said Vandenlangenberg. “We are not going to decide that by the higher seed. Or by flipping a coin. We are going to play a game to decide. It will be on a neutral floor.”
