By Malcolm Butler
Just days after their biggest win of the season, the Cedar Creek Lady Cougars came out flat at the wrong time, falling 45-21 to Quitman Friday night at The Brickhouse.
Head coach Katie Hall’s team, fresh off an upset victory over Castor, struggled in just about every phase of the game, including one 12-minute stretch without a point.
“I think our girls felt frustrated (during that stretch) that we weren’t getting easy looks and we weren’t catching passes cleanly,” said Hall. “Shots weren’t going in. Nothing seemed to be going right for us. And you could tell we were getting frustrated about it.”
Creek (11-9) held a slim 9-8 lead after the first quarter, thanks to a Leah Sutherland three-pointer with 25 seconds remaining in the stanza. However, by the time the Lady Cougars scored again on an Olivia Underwood layup with 4:10 to play in the third quarter, Quitman held a 29-11 lead.
“We were coming in with confidence, but when you go 12 minutes without scoring, it makes it tough,” said Hall. “We probably had more turnovers than we had points tonight. It’s hard to win games like that.
“Our game plan defensively I thought was fine. I thought our effort was there. We just couldn’t score.”
Behind the play of Cali Deal, Quitman (17-7) used an 18-0 second quarter to take a 26-8 halftime lead and then upped it to 29-9 before Underwood’s bucket. Deal, who missed the final six minutes of the first quarter with an injury, led the Wolverines with 16 points in the victory despite the Lady Cougars.
“To keep her under 20 was something I thought in my mind would give us a chance,” said Hall. “And we did that. But even when she did come out of the game in the first quarter, I felt like we couldn’t get going. We would force a turnover and then we would turn right back around and give it back to them. We just didn’t capitalize even when she missed that stretch.”
Mallory Smith and Sutherland led the Lady Cougars with six points each.
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Quitman 71, Cougars 50
In the nightcap, the Cougars started off strong holding a five-point lead after the first quarter but then saw Quitman net 60 points over the final three quarters in coasting to a 71-50 victory.
After posting a 5-game winning streak, the Cougars (11-7) have dropped three straight, including back-to-back home losses to Castor and Quitman.
Jake Doan scored nine points in the opening frame as Creek led 16-11 after the first quarter of action. However, Quitman came to life in the second quarter, outscoring Cedar Creek 22-10 to take a 33-26 advantage. Jack Bell and Connor Johnson led Creek with four points each in the second frame.
Despite Brett Bell and Doan hitting back-to-back three-pointers in the third quarter, Quitman methodically pulled away from the Cougars. The Wolverines, who hit 10 three-pointers in the ball-game, hit four of them in the third quarter, outscoring the Cougars 22-11 to increase their advantage to 55-37 heading into the fourth quarter.
A Doan layup with 6:34 to play in the game closed the Quitman lead to 57-41 before the Wolverines used a 13-2 run over the next four minutes to push the advantage out to as many as 27 points.
Doan led Creek with 18 points and Jack Bell chipped in with 12 points.
