by Malcolm Butler
Over the last month of the regular season, the Cedar Creek Cougars were a walking MASH unit.
Friday night at the Brickhouse in their first round playoff match-up against Westminster Christian, that didn’t change.
Already down its leading scorer in Cannon Robbins who missed the last month of the season due to injuries to both elbows, Cedar Creek (14-9) appeared to lose second leading scorer Jake Terry less than two minutes into the game.
Terry suffered a broken hand with 6:15 to play in the first quarter, but came back into the contest at the start of the second stanza and proceeded to score a game-high 25 points to lead the Cougars to a 60-45 victory.
With the win, Cedar Creek will advance to face No. 5 seed Vermilion Catholic Tuesday at 5 p.m.
However, the story of the night was the Cougars perseverance in overcoming yet another challenge and keeping their season alive.
“It was a real gutty performance,” said head coach Lance Waldron. “We trailed the entire first half. Jake went out in the first period with a broken hand. It was bad, bad, bad. His hand looks terrible. The doctor was there and fixed him up and he went back in the game.”
With Terry sidelined for much of the first half, the Cougars found themselves trailing 15-12 at the end of the first quarter and 23-18 at halftime.
However, the second half was a different story.
“We came out in the second half and took over the game,” said Waldron. “It was a really gutty performance. Jake had most of his points after he broke his hand. It was something to see. He just gutted it out.”
Terry, who scored six points in the first half, scored nine points in the third quarter while Jack Bell added seven and younger brother Brett Bell netted six points as the Cougars outscored Westminster Christian 22-10 during the eight-minute period.
Waldron credited much of the second half success to the Cougars changing their defense.
“Defensively, we didn’t do that great in the first half,” said Waldron. “We were playing man. We did hold them to 25 in the first half. About a minute before the start of the third quarter, we decided to go to a diamond and one. We stayed in that he rest of the game and that made a huge difference.”
The Cougars used the gimmick defense to guard Tyler Spraggins, who after draining a pair of three-pointers in the opening quarter only scored two points (both free throws) the rest of the night.
And while Westminster Christian (19-14) was struggling to score, Terry wasn’t … broken hand and all.
The junior guard scored 10 points in the decisive fourth quarter that saw Cedar Creek outscore their opponent 20-12.
Waldron said he was amazed how Terry shot his free throws with his non-shooting hand due to the injury as Terry connected on 8-of-11 from the charity strip.
“Jake shot his free throws left handed,” said Waldron. “And made them.”
Another storyline was the return of Cannon, who was able to play limited minutes in the fourth quarter and recorded a steal and a bucket for his only points of the night.
In addition to Terry’s game-high 25 points, Jack Bell added 16 points and Brett Bell chipped in with 10.
