Lady Cougars To Face Ardmore In Class 5A Regional.
Bob Forrest Guest Sports Writer Ada Evening News
Ada — ADA — With the exception of a second-half meltdown in a loss to Duncan last week, the Ada Lady Cougars appear to have finally found the consistency they lacked all season. And their timing couldn’t be better.
Ada, 10-10 after a victory over Durant at home Monday to wrap up the regular season, will face old rival Ardmore in an elimination game at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to open the Class 5A regional tournament at Western Heights High School in Oklahoma City. With a win, the Lady Cougars will keep alive hopes for their first regional title since 2008; with a loss, their rollercoaster of a season will come to an early end.
“The first time we played Ardmore, we beat them pretty handily, then the second time we played them we didn’t have Erin (Walling) or Catie (Newport), and they beat us pretty easily (51-31),” Ada coach Michelle Shannon said. “We’ve finally got everybody healthy.
“I was pleased that we got sent west (for the playoffs),” Shannon said when asked about her draw. “That’s not to downplay the teams in the west, but there are some better teams in the east. Now we just have to take advantage of our opportunity.”
While the Lady Cougars appear to have a favorable regional assignment, nobody did the Ada boys squad any favors. The Cougars — 2-18 after snapping a 14-game losing streak with an upset of Durant Monday — will travel to El Reno to face the No. 11 team in Class 5A at 8 p.m. Friday.
“They’re the No. 3 seed and we’re the No. 14 seed (in the West),” Ada boys coach Ron Anderson said of the Indians. “They’re a good team. They play in a tough league — they play Guthrie, Shawnee and Carl Albert — and they hold their own.
“They’ve got some athletes; they’re not that big, so size-wise we match up with them pretty well,” he added. “They have some quickness we’ll have to adjust to, and they shoot the ball pretty well. They do everything right, and that’s why their record (15-8) is as good as it is.”
The Lady Cougars’ 50-42 victory over Durant Monday was just their second in their last four games, but one of the two losses was a 36-33 defeat on Feb. 16 to a McAlester club that had manhandled them, 51-31, two weeks early. Shannon’s squad also took a big step forward in its second meeting of the year with Tecumseh, dominating the Lady Savages, 55-42, on Feb. 12 after losing at Tecumseh (55-47) to open the season.
Against Duncan last Friday, Ada — which had already beaten the Lady Demons twice this season — had a big first-half lead but went cold after the break and turned the ball over 26 times in a 47-45 loss.
Shannon said the biggest difference over the past couple of weeks has been her offense, which struggled in midseason but has been producing since early February.
“Everything looks good if your outside shot is falling,” she noted. “We’ve had our ups and downs with our offense, but when we do a good job defensively, our offense has been better. We haven’t been doing anything different — we’ve just been playing defense and hitting some shots.”
The one constant in the Ada attack all season has been junior Erin Walling, who scored 23 points in Monday’s win and has been in double figures in all but a handful of games, despite being the focus of the defensive game plan of most of the Lady Cougars’ opponents. “Erin is patient enough that when they deny her the ball, we can run off some screens and get her open,” Shannon said. “If they’re denying her on the perimeter, I’ll put her closer to the basket where we can set some screens for her.
“We try to make it as tough as possible for other teams to defend her,” she said. “At the same time, we’re not as one-dimensional as some of the teams that I’ve seen play. I’ve got some other kids who have been stepping up lately.”
Senior post player Catie Newport, who missed all or part of five games with an illness and joined Walling as the only returning starters off last year’s club, has been solid all season, and Shannon has also been getting solid contributions from guards Charlesey Youngwolfe (who scored 13 points Monday) and Newakis Girdley and forward Andie Jewett (who played a lot of minutes while Newport was out).
“Newakis played well (Monday), and Andie Jewett has been playing better,” Shannon said. “A lot of the kids who started the year with no experience have been getting some playing time, and they’re improving. Any points they give me are just added points.
“We’ve played a lot of games since the first of January, and it’s been a long season,” she said. “We’ve been lucky with injuries, because that can devastate you. Any time your younger girls get playing time, that helps. I think it was a positive. They got some playing time and some confidence, and I think that’s paying off for us now.”
