By T. Scott Boatright
In a back-and-forth contest from the get go, it felt early on like Tuesday night’s District 2-1A showdown pitting the Ouachita Christian Lady Eagles at Lincoln Preparatory School would come down to the free-throw line.
Unfortunately for the Lady Panthers, that’s exactly what happened as Ouachita Christian held on for a 42-39 road win at the LPS Gym.
OCS led 16-8 at the end of the opening stanza and maintained a four-point halftime advantage at 19-15 largely in part because the Lady Eagles were hitting more free throws than the Lady Panthers.
And Lincoln Prep managed to cut the OCS lead down to two points at 28-26 at the 1:22 mark of the third quarter when Synniah Spann banked a jumper off the glass before the Lady Eagles regained a four-point advantage at 33-29 heading into the final eight minutes of play.
But that left Lincoln Prep with a chance, and the Lady Panthers took advantage with Asijah Wright’s putback jumper tying things up at 33-33 with 6:21 remaining.
The :Lady Panthers moved out on top 35-33 at the 5:06 of the final period on a Ajah Saulsberry layup before pushing their advantage to four points at 37-33 on a Cali Cotton putback with 4:06 left on the clock.
That left the Lady Panthers in the driver’s seat with the free-throw line being the vehicle they had to drive to a win.
But Lincoln Prep went 0-for-4 (with a lane violation) at the charity stripe while the Lady Eagles went 2-of-3 from the foul lane in the final stanza to escape with the win.
“You can’t go 12-of-25 at the free-throw line and expect to win,” said Lady Panthers coach Fred Hearn. “It’s as simple as that. And that’s what made the difference tonight — the difference between a win and loss.”
Wright led the Lady Panthers with 12 points while Jayleen Spann added eight for the Lady Panthers, now 8-13 overall and 1-2 in district play.
“We’re made a lot of progress since winning only three games last season,” Hearn said. “We’re still learning, and part of that is learning to take advantage of situations and learning how to win. Anything can still happen, but now we have to try and win out the rest of the way.
“But anything’s possible and we’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep working and keep learning and see what happens.
Next up for the Lady Panthers is a district contest at St. Frederick on Friday.
