NORMAN – Defense won a championship Saturday at the 2A South Regional Tournament at Caddo Hills High School. Parkers Chapel held Horatio to three field goals in the second half in a 37-26 finals victory.
The Lady Trojans improved to 20-4 and will carry a No. 1 seed into next week’s 2A State Tournament at Melbourne. Parkers Chapel will meet Acorn Tuesday at 10 a.m.
On Saturday, the Lady Trojans trailed 19-15 at the half before outscoring the Lady Lions 12-2 in the third quarter and 10-5 in the fourth.
PC coach Justin Welch, who had an answer for every situation on the court during the tournament, struggled when asked to comment on his team’s performance.
“I don’t even know what to say. The first thing that comes to my head is just, ‘wow.’ Three days in a row, the defensive intensity we played with was exactly what I told them was the type of defense that could win championships,” he said. “They bought into it. They went out there and just had three phenomenal games in a row of just hard-nosed defensive effort.”
Ali Looney scored 14 points, including 8-of-8 at the free throw line. The Lady Trojans hit all eight free throw attempts in the fourth quarter with Looney going 6-for-6 and Drue Thomas 2-for-2.
“We went into halftime down by four. I challenged the girls. I always tell them in practice, you’ll get to a point where it feels like you hit a wall and you can’t make it anymore,” said Welch. “They’ve hit that wall and they’ve busted through the wall. We need to go out there and put forth that effort on the defensive end because Horatio is going to hit the same wall that we hit. I feel like after halftime, they had hit that wall. Our defensive intensity picked up when they did.”
Horatio jumped out to an 11-7 lead after hitting a pair of 3-pointers in the opening quarter. Parkers Chapel did not allow another 3-point make in the game.
“We wanted to run them off the 3-point line. They can shoot lights out,” Welch said. “I challenged the girls to challenge every 3-pointer. If they hit it with an extended hand, tell them good job and move on. But we wanted to make them take it inside and make tough shots over our interior defense.”
The Lady Trojans made a defensive adjustment in the second quarter, putting Thomas on Horatio’s 6-foot post. This freed up Taylor Fortune to roam as a help-side defender.
“I knew Drue was up for the challenge and she did a great job on her. She made her work for everything,” said Welch.
Offensively, the Lady Trojans struggled against Horatio’s pressure defense. Welch said simply handling the ball against the press was the key in scoring enough to win.
“They really rely on forcing turnovers. I thought we handled the pressure really well,” he said. “We wanted to go at our pace, and I thought our guards did a really good job of that, especially in the second half. They didn’t rush and get panicky.”
Freshman Emma Ray led the Lady Lions with 13 points.
Thomas scored eight for PC with Fortune and Macie Wood adding seven and five, respectively.
“If you would’ve told me we were going to come over here and win every game by double-digits, I probably would’ve said you were crazy,” said Welch.
“Our team chemistry, it showed up. There were a couple times when the other team made turnovers or something. They’d start yelling at each other and pointing fingers and stuff. I never saw that in our girls this week. They all made mistakes, but they picked each other up. The whole team had something to do with this. The girls on the bench did a great job of staying positive and really helping our players on the court with communication and encouragement.”
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