by Malcolm Butler
Cannon Robbins scored 29 points, Jake Terry added 19 and Jack Bell chipped in with 12 to lead Cedar Creek to a 76-70 win over Class 4A West Ouachita Monday night.
The Cougars (7-3), who are currently No. 4 in the Select School Division IV power ratings, defeated the Chiefs (12-6) for the second time in the last two weeks behind a balanced offensive attack that also included eight-point efforts by Cameron Temple and Luke Waldron.
One week after watching his team struggle with a team concept in a home loss to Quitman, head coach Lance Waldron felt his players showed progress.
“As the game went on (we shared it better),” said Waldron. “To start the game we still had some things that were lingering from the (Quitman) game, but as the game went on and it got down to crunch time, what we had been working on in practice the last three days showed.”
With the Cougars clinging to a 68-67 lead with under two minutes to play, Cedar Creek ran its delay offense to perfection. While using the clock, the Cougars ran time before ending up with uncontested layups by Luke Waldron with 1:25 to play and by Jack Bell with 1:01 to play to push the advantage to 72-67.
“That was our focus throughout the last three days because of the way we operated against Quitman,” said Waldron. “It was not pretty. It was nothing like that. This is what we worked on. We worked on sharing the ball.
“We have some really good players on the team, but they can’t do it alone. We have to have everyone involved and I thought we responded tonight.”
Cedar Creek, which defeated West Ouachita 64-50 on December 14 at the Brickhouse, got off to a slow start Monday night as the Cougars fell behind 17-8 midway through the first quarter. However, the Cougars began to claw their way back as Robbins and Temple combined to net eight of the final 10 points of the quarter as Creek trailed 23-18 after one quarter.
Temple’s on-ball defense was a big part of the Cougars success, including a steal and a break away layup at the buzzer to end the first quarter.
“Cameron is such a good story, a basketball story,” said Waldron. “A life story is Cameron Temple. No one is going to write that story but they should. Cam went through some struggles last year. I challenged him with his defense. Cam is a competitor and he wants to be on the floor, but defensively he was not there.
“It’s a testament to him. He put in the work. He worked his butt off, and now he is one of our best defenders. You saw it tonight.”
Terry opened the second quarter with back-to-back three-pointers to give Cedar Creek its first lead of the game at 24-23. Temple added a layup to push the lead to three as the two teams traded leads over the majority of the second quarter.
A Robbins layup in the final 30 seconds of the stanza gave the Cougars a 35-33 halftime lead.
The Cougars came out of the halftime locker room strong, extending its lead to 44-37 with just over 5 minutes to play in the frame. West Ouachita closed the deficit to 51-50 before Luke Waldron converted a conventional three-point play with 1:54 to play to make it 54-50.
West Ouachita tied the game early in the fourth quarter at 60-60 on a three-pointer but it was short-lived as Robbins answered with a three-pointer less than 10 seconds later. The Chiefs would tie it once again at 67-67 on a conventional three-point play with 3:07 to play before the Cougars used a 9-0 run over the the next three minutes to pull away for the win.
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Cedar Creek Scoring: FG(3)-FT=Total Points
Cameron Temple 4-0=8; Cannon Robbins 12(3)-2=29; Luke Waldron 3-2=8; Jack Bell 4-4=12; Jake Terry 7(2)-3=19. Totals: 30(5)-11=76.
Score by Quarters
Cedar Creek 18-17-21-20=76
West Ouachita 23-10-19-18=70.
