By T. Scott Boatright
It’s not how you start but how you finish.
That was a hard lesson learned for the Cedar Creek Lady Cougars Saturday afternoon after falling 39-28 to Ouachita Christian in a neutral site contest for the District 2-1A girls regular season championship at West Monroe High School.
After OCS nailed its first basket 18 seconds into the game to open scoring, the Lady Cougars quickly rallied, tying things up on a Leah Sutherland layup before taking a 5-2 lead on a Sutherland 3-pointer at the 5:43 mark of the opening stanza.
The two teams kept things tight the remainder of the first quarter, with OCS taking a 11-8 lead heading into the second quarter of play.
Cedar Creek got within two points at 11-9 on a Sutherland free throw at the 6:29 mark of the second quarter, but then the proverbial wheels seemingly came off for the Lady Cougars as they just couldn’t seem to find the basket the remainder of the first half.
The Lady Cougars didn’t score again until the 3:13 mark of the second quarter when a Caroline James free throw cut the OCS advantage 19-10, and Cedar Creek could only manage two more free throws for the rest of the stanza as the Lady Eagles moved out to a double-digit lead at 23-12 by halftime.
“We missed shots we needed to hit and we got the looks we needed to get and we just weren’t making,” Creek head coach Katie Hall said. “Missing wide-open layups hurts. Defensively, I thought we were pretty good. Offensively, we just could not figure out a way to score. We kept trying to get it inside, but kept turning the ball over, missing easy shots trying to get a foul and not putting the ball in the bucket.”
Cedar Creek maintained pace with OCS in the third quarter, holding the Lady Aggies to a 29-19 lead heading into the final eight minutes of play.
And it was the same story in the final stanza as the Lady Cougars got no closer than eight points back as OCS took the 2-1A title.
While it was nothing new facing a district foe for the third time this season, the OCS press seemed to get to the Lady Cougars after their strong first quarter.
“I don’t know why it bothered us that much because we’ve seen it all year,” Hall said. “We knew it was coming. We prepared for it. Yeah, it’s disappointing.”
Hall admitted that after the first quarter, her team seemed to run out of energy the rest of the way.
“I think they were ready,” Hall said. “I think we ran out of gas at the end. This is four games in six days and that’s a lot. It is what it is.”
Sutherland led Creek with 12 points, while James and Alivia Lee added five points each for the Lady Cougars, who stand at 21-8 on the season and await the girls playoffs brackets to be announced on Monday.
