The Presbyterian Christian girls’ basketball managed to hold off a late comeback by Lamar Christian in a 28-22 win on Friday night.
The low scoring game was a product of both teams coming off recent quarantines due to COVID-19.
“We quarantined for COVID for five games,” Lamar Christian coach George Coll said. “We missed playing those games that put us into the position of playing this game. We just have a lot of stuff that we need to clean up ourselves instead of worrying about what the other team is doing.”
Like the Lions, the Bobcats also missed a string of games with their contest against Lamar Christian being their second since their quarantine.
“We have been on a two and a half week quarantine because of COVID,” PCS coach Drew Smith said. “We haven’t been able to do anything. We just challenged them to be really tough and physical and give their best effort and that the score would take care of itself if we did those things.
PCS (7-2) opened the game with a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“We played really solid defense,” Smith. “They have a big player in Anna Rose Engle. She was a big focal point for us. I thought Makayla Smith did a great job guarding him. She was very physical with her and didn’t let her get any open books. That was obviously very important for us to get a big lead like that.”
In the second quarter, the scoring plague fell on both teams, with the Lions scoring from a bucket by Reese Prestige and a free throw made by Engle, who led Lamar Christian with nine points, to narrow PCS’ halftime lead 13-3.
The Lady Bobcats continued to dominate the game in the third quarter by extending its lead to as much as 14 points at 19-5. However, at the start of the fourth quarter, Lamar Christian (3-3) switched to a man-to-man defense.
“We started playing man and picking up and pressuring,” Coll said. “That’s something that I can’t do early because I don’t have that kind of depth. We waited a little bit later, and we discussed it. We still had that same amount of energy, whether we are playing man or zone. We are growing. This is going to be a good team.”
The Lion defense helped kick start an 11-3 lead that narrowed PCS lead to one possession to 25-22. Yet the Lady Bobcats managed to stay ahead with several late free throws. At the same time, Lamar Christian missed on several opportunities to retake the lead because of poor free-throw shooting as the Lions shot 5 of 18 from the line.
“That was a big difference in the game,” Coll said. “We shoot a lot of free throws, but we have been just up and down with them.”
Leading PCS in scoring was Addyson Scherer, who scored 10 points.
“Addyson, she is only in the ninth grade, which is hard to believe,” Smith said. “In a lot of ways, she is one of our biggest leaders. She’s not vocal about it, but she does it with the way that she plays. She had two people on her a lot of the time, and she still did a good job handling the ball, especially late.”
According to Coll, the difference in the game was his team’s confidence and effort level.
“We just have to learn how to play more collectively at the beginning of the game with that level of energy that we had at the end of the game,” Coll said. “I think we came out a little nervous. PCS is a big program, and I think it’s important for them to compete with them. I think Coach Smith did a really good job of preparing for a man offense. He got us a little out of synch there. We weren’t scoring the basketball, and I think we kind of lost confidence a bit in what we were doing. I think as the game went on, we picked up the energy and the effort and started to execute a little bit.”
For Smith, the key for his team moving forward is simply making up for the lost time and having more quality time on the court.
Not making excuses, but COVID is killing us with our time to work on a lot of different situational areas, and that’s one of them,” Smith said. “Ultimately, we have to be tougher and stronger with the ball. It’s not the kids’ fault we have just been dealt a bad hand with some COVID issues. We are going to get better there, but you have to give credit to Lamar Christian, who made a good adjustment to crawl back in it.”
PCS will play Brookhaven Academy tomorrow, while Lamar Christian will play Amite School on Dec. 18.
