Cougars dig heels in defensively, stymie Lady Birds on offense to earn crucial CCC victory

LEWISTOWN, Mo. — When the Highland girls basketball team fell behind by eight points a little more than a minute into the third quarter of Friday’s Clarence Cannon Conference clash with South Shelby, the Cougars’ mindset was simple.

Flush it.

“Coming out in the second half, they were knocking down shots, and we couldn’t let that get in our heads,” Cougars junior guard Chevie Sharpe said. “We had to flush it.”

The Cougars clamped down defensively on the Lady Birds, clawed their way back and held on for a 38-35 victory at the Highland High School gym.

“Man, the girls just defend,” said Highland coach Ashton Jaco, whose team is ranked eighth in the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Class 3 poll. “When we can defend like that, I feel like we’ve got a chance against anybody.”

After South Shelby took a 20-18 lead into halftime, Lady Birds senior point guard Callie McWilliams drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner on the opening possession of the third quarter. A minute later, Hannah Gaines sank a triple from the opposite corner to give the Lady Birds their largest lead of the game at 26-18.

The Cougars never blinked.

“We didn’t shut down,” senior guard Ellie Goehl said. “We definitely faced that adversity, flushed it and played great basketball.”

Highland held South Shelby to four points the rest of the quarter and took their first lead at 29-28 when Goehl canned a 3-pointer — her first points of the game — with 3:45 left directly in front of the Highland bench, where Jaco hyped up Goehl as she unloaded the go-ahead triple.

“That one was fun,” Jaco said. “I’m yelling at her the whole time, ‘Get your feet set! Get your feet set!’ Then here it comes. She’s in rhythm, and I’m talking her up the whole time like, ‘Knock that thing down,’ and she just drills it. That’s so fun as a coach when you have those right in front of your bench.”

That wouldn’t be Goehl’s only tide-turning 3-pointer in the second half. With the game tied at 30 and 6:30 left in the fourth quarter, Goehl again buried a 3-pointer to give the Cougars the lead.

“They were great, but I couldn’t have them without the passes from my teammates,” Goehl said of her two 3-pointers, which accounted for all six of her points. “I couldn’t have them if we didn’t execute on defense. I couldn’t have them if we didn’t have the teamwork we had the entire game.”

Two minutes later, Sharpe joined the go-ahead 3-pointer party by making one of her own to give the Cougars a 36-33 lead.

“That was a huge spot when I hit that,” Sharpe said. “I knew after that, it was game on.” 

Sharpe’s third 3-pointer of the game was the final shot the Cougars made, but the lid on opposite basket was just as large. On one possession with a shade under four minutes left and the Lady Birds now down 36-35, they had four shots on one possession that could have given them the lead, but none of them fell. The Lady Birds (18-2, 0-1 CCC) missed their final 11 shots, nine of which could have tied the game or given South Shelby the lead.

“That’s basketball,” said South Shelby coach Luke O’Laughlin, whose team is tied for fourth in the Class 3 poll. “That happens. Unfortunately we ended up on the wrong side of it tonight. You can either feel sorry for yourself about it or come out next game and try to correct it.”

The only points in the final four minutes were two Addy Abell free throws, which she made with 50 and 26 seconds left, respectively. She split her free throw attempts on both trips, making the second foul shot both times.

“You’re going to face adversity, but you just have to keep pushing through,” Abell said. “I know my team is there to back me up, and I know that we’re going to get a stop defensively if we need it.”

Those missed free throws kept it a one-possession game, where it stayed the entire final 12 minutes.

“We could play them again, make them do the exact same thing and they could hit those shots,” Jaco said. “You can’t control that. You can only control how you defend, and we defended well, rebounded just enough and held on there at the end.”

A jump ball following the Lady Birds’ 10th straight missed field goal gave the ball to the Cougars with 13.1 seconds left. Belle Roush stole the ball from Abell as she tried to get the ball across half court. The Lady Birds scrambled to find an open look, but all they could muster was a McWilliams jumper from inside the 3-point arc that clanked off the rim with two seconds left, giving the Cougars (20-2, 3-0 CCC) their eighth straight win.

“Sometimes the ball’s got to bounce your way in games like that,” Jaco said. “We got some bounces, but we’re going to take them.”

It took a determined effort from the Cougars to get those bounces, though.

“There are a lot of games where we get down, but we come right back just because of our mentality,” Abell said. “We have to get up, we have to keep going, we have to score, we have to play defense, one possession at a time.”