One and DONE: Defending champs send WCHS home
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The first, a road game at White County where the WCHS girls suffered one of their worst shooting nights of the year. The second came a few weeks later, when another rough offensive night led to a loss at Cookeville.
With both those losses in mind, WCHS hit the road to Sparta again Monday night to take on Cookeville in a first-round district tournament matchup.
Unfortunately, however, for the Lady Pioneers and their fans who made the trip to the 7-AAA tournament, the night ended with a disappointingly similar result.
Coach Ann Eades’ squad, which entered the tourney as the No. 6 seed and missing two players — including one of its top scorers, struggled to find any offensive rhythm throughout the first half, falling well behind on the way to a 64-33 loss to the No. 3 Lady Cavaliers.
“I thought Cookeville played awfully well, probably the best I’ve seen them play all year,” Eades said. “They’ve always played great defense, but they came out and really shot the ball well (Monday) night.
“We dug our grave early, but give this team some credit, they came back and cut it to nine in the second half.”
For the second straight meeting against Cookeville, the Lady Pioneers failed to record a field goal in the first quarter. With Leah Cunningham out with an illness and McKenna Rhea out with an injury, several other players were not quite at 100 percent for Warren County, which managed just a free throw each from Leanne Pelham and Tia Williams and trailed 15-2 by the end of the period.
On the defensive end of the court, the Lady Pioneers concentrated on stopping the Lady Cavs’ inside attack, and particularly senior standout Cara Reed. With that strategy in place, however, WCMS left Cookeville with numerous open looks from the perimeter in the first half.
The Lady Cavaliers — the defending 7-AAA tournament champions — responded with deadly accuracy, burying six 3-pointers over the first two periods of play to build a healthy halftime lead.
“That’s not part of their game plan at all,” Eades said of Cookeville’s outside accuracy, “and to show how well they were hitting, they were even bringing girls in off the bench and they were hitting 3’s. When they hit from outside, they started pulling away.”
Down by a whopping 28-9 margin at halftime, the Lady Pioneers came out with renewed vigor after the intermission.
After two Reed free throws opened the third, Warren County went on a 9-0 run to begin to close the gap, then scored five more unanswered points — made up of a 3-pointer from Whitney Pelham and two more Williams free throws — to pull within single digits at 32-23.
Unfortunately that would be as close as the Lady Pioneers would get to Cookeville’s lead, as the Lady Cavaliers closed the period with six straight points and led 38-23 heading into the game’s final stanza.
Leanne Pelham posted a pair of baskets in the fourth, but WCHS never challenged the Cookeville lead in the game’s last period. Meredith Redus notched seven points in the frame, and the Lady Cavs hit 8-of-10 free throws down the stretch to seal the win, and the accompanying berth in next week’s Region 4-AAA tourney.
Redus finished with 17 points to lead her club, while Reed had 15 and Megan Allen scored 12. Dani Green had six points, Lacie Bell added five, and Ashley Martin had three while Andrea Copeland, Kellye Jolley and Tashia Bass chipped in two apiece.
Whitney Pelham scored 11 to finish as the only Lady Pioneer with double-digit points, while Leanne Pelham had eight and Tia Williams scored six. Alyssa Lankford had four, while Sallie Slatton and Vanessa Cornelius posted two each.
The game marked the end of the high school careers for Lady Pioneer seniors Slatton, Williams and Leanne Pelham, who ranked among the top 10 scorers in the league for the season.
Warren County finished the 2003-04 campaign with 15 wins balanced against 10 losses.