Whiteoak tops Fairfield in SHAC showdown

MOWRYSTOWN — Leading at the conclusion of each quarter played Monday night, the Whiteoak Lady Wildcats fended off the Fairfield Lady Lions, 42-31.

The Southern Hills Athletic Conference showdown saw Whiteoak jump out to a 6-0 lead to open the game, as Fairfield scored their first points of the game with 4:53 on the clock off a basket by Faith Donley.

Whiteoak answered with a 3-pointer from Jaylie Parr with 4:25 on the clock, but the Lady Lions came back with a basket by Isabelle Hale, followed by three consecutive free-throw attempts converted by Kassi Miller, cutting the Whiteoak lead down to two points.

Parr wrapped up the first-quarter scoring by increasing the WHS lead to five points at 12-7 with a 3-pointer, her second of the quarter.

WHS outscored Fairfield, 7-6 in the second quarter, starting with Whiteoak making the first basket of the second frame with points in the paint from Madison Thompson.

Fairfield scored six straight points from the 5:26 mark of the game to the 2:30 mark as Rilee Quickle drove to the hoop for two points, Hale sank a long-range jumper, and Donley connected with an off-balanced jumper, getting Fairfield to within a point of tying the score.

As Whiteoak held a 14-13 lead, they ended the quarter with the final five points scored in the first half as Addison Roberts made a basket, and with 4.1 left in the frame and first half, Parr hit a 3-pointer from the corner of the court, putting Whiteoak ahead by six points at halftime with a 19-13 lead.

WHS head coach Ron Harris talked about some adversity his team played with, and how they overcame some illness in the SHAC win on Monday night.

“Addy Roberts was sick today, and she got sick before the game. For her to go out there and play as much and as well she did, she sucked it up. Kylee (Hamm) got in foul trouble but didn’t let it affect the way she played. Some of the other girls got like minutes here or there,” Harris said. “Nobody pouted, they went in there and did their job. We got positive minutes from everybody that stepped on the court.

“There's normally people that will get in and I don't think they gave us all positive minutes, but tonight, whether it was 30 seconds or two minutes, whatever, when they were in, they rebounded, right passes, made layups, whatever it was. We didn't have anybody who did not play well tonight.”

Whiteoak held their largest lead of the game in the third with a 15-point advantage with only .39 seconds left in the frame.

“The momentum definitely went with us for a little bit. We kind of practice that on runs — how to get a run, how to stop a run and those kinds of things. We were able to get more runs in a four-minute period than they did, and that's what broke the game open, but then again, we let them get a run and kind of bring it back,” Harris said. “That's the second team in our league for a reason. They've been playing a couple harder teams that we have so far this year, so they've been tested a little bit more, and honestly, they’ve played better basketball so far than we have.”

After Fairfield's Meri Jackson made a put-back bucket to start the third, Whiteoak scored the next seven points in a span of less than two minutes with a 3-pointer by Parr, a long-range jumper from Potts and a basket by Carr, increasing their lead to 11 points with 5:35 left in the third frame.

Fairfield called a timeout, and when they returned to the court, Hale hit a corner jumper. The Lady ’Cats answered with eight straight points as Carr, Parr, Kylee Hamm and Carr again all scored baskets, pushing Whiteoak’s lead to 34-19.

Fairfield's Miller sank a 3-pointer with 9.0 left in the third to cut Whiteoak’s lead to 12 points at 34-22.

Fairfield began the fourth frame with a drive to the hoop for two points by Quickle, followed by two free throws made by Donley, timeouts by both teams, then with 3:15 left in the fourth, Fairfield's Donley stole the ball and broke to the hoop to net two points.

From that point on — the 3:15 mark of the fourth until the game ended —Whiteoak’s defense added to their successful night as FHS scored only one more point for the rest of the game, a free throw made by Jaeden Drury.

Whiteoak ended the game with six final points, four by free throw and a two-point put-back basket at the buzzer.

“We let a couple open shots go that we didn't let the whole game, and they stepped up and made them. That always makes it tough. But then we locked down on defense, we switched it up a little bit and kind of let them run more clock out on offense than we could when we're on offense,” Harris said. “It played in our favor with our defense, to let them be on offense tonight, because we were struggling a little bit playing keep-away. But overall composure wasn't bad. We didn't force a shot. We had the right mentality so instead of taking a layup and missing it, we dribbled out and ran some more clock off and made them foul us.

“The people that ended up fouling us were their main players, so we got their two main scorers out of the game. A good team's going to score in the fourth quarter, when you’ve got some people with experience out there. They're going to make a shot or two or the right play. You're not going to blank a good team in the fourth quarter. But we did enough, and that's all that matters.”

WHS finished with Parr leading the way with 15 points, making four 3-pointers, one two-point basket, and she was 1-of-2 from the free-throw line.

Hamm finished with eight points, while Carr and Roberts each scored six points. Potts finished with five points, and Thompson scored two points.

Donley led Fairfield with 10 points, and next was Hale with eight points. Miller totaled six points, and the rest of the FHS scoring included Quickle with four and Jackson with two.

“I was happy with the way the girls battled there (in the fourth quarter),” FHS head coach Jennifer Blue said. “We had a key player out today, so we had some players playing in odd positions, things like that. They were trying to get used to that. They never got down, and they just battled the whole entire time.

“Kassi Miller went out with foul trouble. She's our point guard, so Rilee Quickle had to step up there and be our point a little bit. Meri Jackson, she was a starter for us today when she's only seen JV action before today, and then Isabelle Hale as well. She played a ton of minutes for us when she's usually more JV too.

That really made us work through some things,” Blue continued. “It's just growing, you know, with a young team like that. They have seven seniors, we have one, so it was just growing pains, but we'll get there and the girls will keep after it.

“Just moving forward, we’ve got to put this behind us and build on it, look to see what we did right and what we did wrong and how we can adjust and grow on that. We’ll look to build for next week when we have Fayetteville and Lynchburg-Clay.”

The win sends Whiteoak to an overall record of 4-0 in SHAC and 5-2 overall. Fairfield stands at 2-2 in the SHAC and 2-3 overall.

BOX SCORE
FHS –  07 06 07 11 — 31
WHS – 12 07 15 08 — 42

WHITEOAK (42) — K.Hamm 3 (0) 2-4 8, L.Carr 3 (0) 0-0 6, A.Roberts 1 (0) 4-6 6, J.Parr 1 (4) 1-2 15, T.Potts 2 (0) 1-3 5, M.Thompson 1 (0) 0-0 2. TOTALS: 11 (4) 8-15 42.

FAIRFIELD (31) — I.Hale 4 (0) 0-0 8, J.Drury 0 (0) 1-2 1, R.Quickle 2 (0) 0-0 4, K.Miller 0 (1) 3-3 6, F.Donley 4 (0) 2-2 10, M.Jackson 1 (0) 0-0 2. TOTALS: 11 (1) 6-7 31.