Published: January 30, 2008 12:17 pm      

Stonewall boys clip Coalgate

Walker's big outing leads Lady 'Cats to victory

STONEWALL — Stonewall’s recent experience in close games paid off in the final minutes of Tuesday’s home showdown with Coalgate at the Murphy-Roberts Gymnasium.

The Longhorns — who had won nailbiters over Roff (53-47 at Roff on Jan. 11) and Tupelo (75-73 in overtime in Saturday’s third-place boys game at the Stonewall Invitational) already this month — got key plays from seniors J. P. Maples and Bronson Gore down the stretch and survived a huge effort from Coalgate junior guard Luke Palmer to beat the young Wildcats, 60-59. The victory was the 14th win in 15 games for Stonewall, which improved to 19-4.

In the girls contest, Coalgate center Mallory Walker scored 26 points and completed an impressive double-double with 13 rebounds to lead the Lady Wildcats — who dropped out of the top 20 last week for the first time in three seasons — to their second dominant victory in a row, 49-37, over a Lady Longhorn team that claimed the third-place trophy at the Stonewall tournament last week.

BOYS

Stonewall 60, Coalgate 59

Coalgate (13-5) led 59-55 after sophomore Nick Thompson hit a pair of free throws with 1:16 to play, but Gore — who finished with 25 points, a team-high seven rebounds and three steals — was fouled on a drive down the lane 16 seconds later and, after hitting the layup, converted the three-point play to make it a one-point game with 59.7 seconds remaining.

Then Gore got his final steal of the night in the backcourt just a few seconds later, and after Palmer just missed grabbing his 11th steal of the game soon afterward, Maples drove the lane and hit a floater with 26 seconds left to cap a 17-point effort and put Stonewall ahead for the first time since the opening seconds of the fourth quarter.

Gore made his only real mistake of the night when — after a Coalgate turnover with 23.7 seconds to play — he attempted an ill-advised drive to the basket with 14 seconds left and had his attempted layup rejected by Coalgate center Tyler Ennis. Palmer — who had hit 12 of his previous 19 shots and already had 27 points in the game — grabbed the rebound and went coast-to-coast, but he missed on an out-of-control layup with nine seconds left. Stonewall’s Malcolm Casey (the smallest player on the floor at 5-5) hustled to get the long rebound, and the Wildcats attempted to foul him.

But Casey passed to Gore, who dribbled across the baseline under the Coalgate basket and, from a point just in front of the Wildcat bench, found Josh Scribner with a floor-length pass as time expired.

“We’re finding ways to win these tight games, and that’s something we didn’t do that last couple of years,” third-year Stonewall coach Wes Moreland said after seeing his club (ranked No. 15 in Class A) improve to 19-4 on the season. “I was proud of the way we battled. We made some mental mistakes and turned the ball over too much (the Longhorns had 20 turnovers while forcing 19), but the kids played hard.”

“This game was good for us,” said second-year Coalgate coach Taylor Wiebener, who took his first Wildcat squad to the Class 2A state tournament and saw Stonewall snap his current club’s four-game winning streak in Tuesday’s thriller. “All of our games this year have been in the eight to 10-point range. We haven’t been in tight situations, and we’ve needed that.”

The wild finish was a fitting clima to a back-and-forth contest in which neither team ever led by more than six points. The game featured six ties and an amazing 25 lead changes (11 in the second quarter alone) before Maples finally gave Stonewall the lead for good in the final seconds.

Maples hit two free throws and added a layup off a Gore assist and junior forward Darron Hamilton (whose steal set up Maples’ basket) drove the baseline for a layup with five seconds left to highlight a 6-0 Stonewall run over the final minute of the third quarter that sent the Longhorn to the final period with a 49-47 lead.

But Palmer (who had been in a shooting slump and had scored just 32 points in his previous six games combined) drained a tough pull-up jumper off an assist from Brent Watkins just 20 seconds into the fourth quarter to tie the game for the last time. Then — after Stonewall turned the ball over three times and Coalgate gave it away twice over the next 40 seconds — Palmer hit a similar shot with 6:16 left to put the Wildcats in front for almost six minutes.

Coalgate had four-point leads on four different occasions in the five minutes after Palmer’s second bucket of the quarter (the last time on Thompson’s free throws with 1:16 left), but the Wildcats blew two chances to add to their lead when J. W. Stanley missed the front end of a one-and-one with 2:37 left and Watkins failed in a similar situation 49 seconds later.

Gore grabbed the rebound on Stanley’s miss and went coast-to-coast for a layup to slice a 57-53 Coalgate lead in half with 2:30 left before the Longhorns also missed two opportunities to tie the score over the next 1:14 — the first when Palmer grabbed his 11th steal of the game and the second when Maples misfired on a layup before Thompson finally ended the Coalgate free throw drought at the 1:16 mark.

The Wildcats led for most of the first quarter and had the lead for more than six minutes after Palmer went coast-to-coast with the first of his seven first-half steals for a layup to make it 12-10 with 3:24 left in the first quarter.

Stonewall turned the ball over on four of its final six possessions in the quarter (two of those as a result of Palmer steals), and Coalgate took advantage to build a 16-10 lead before Scribner drained a long 3-pointer with 1:10 left to make it a three-point game heading to the second period.

Palmer banked in a jumper (after a steal at the other end) to give Coalgate an 18-13 lead with 7:45 left in the half, but a 3-pointer by Scribner (his final basket of the night) and two Hamilton free throws over the next 1:23 tied the game, and Gore answered a jumper from Palmer with a spinning layup to tie the score again. Gore's bucket set up a fast-paced five minutes to close the half in which the lead changed hands 10 times.

Coalgate led for the final time before the break at 29-28 on Thompson’s turnaround jumper in the lane with 1:28 left. But Maples grabbed a steal and, after being fouled on a floor-length drive to a layup at the other end, he added the free throw with 53.6 seconds remaining to send the Longhorns to the locker room with a 31-29 lead. Gore hit three layups and assisted on another by Maples over the final 4:15 of the half, and the two Stonewall seniors combined for five baskets that gave the Longhorns a lead during that span.

Stonewall built its biggest lead of the game at 38-32 on a steal and layup by Maples with 5:56 left in the third quarter, but Palmer drained a short jumper just 10 seconds later to ignite a 10-1 Coalgate run over the next two minutes that included four points each from Thompson and Ennis.

The Wildcats led 47-43 after an NBA-length 3-pointer by Palmer with 2:08 left in the period before Stonewall went on its 6-0 run in the final 57 seconds to take the lead heading to the fourth.

Gore — a 5-10 senior who has established himself as the area’s most complete point guard this season — also had three assists in the game, as did Maples. Hamilton had eight points and three steals in the win, and Scribner had three rebounds, a steal and a blocked shot to go with his six points and his solid defensive effort on Ennis.

The Wildcats needed Palmer’s big offensive night, with Ennis — a 6-4 junior center who entered the game averaging almost 20 points per contest — being held to a quiet 14 by Scribner (a 6-5 sophomore) and the rest of the Stonewall defense.

“One of our goals was to try to stop Ennis,” Moreland said. “It’s take your pick — either him or Palmer — and we caught them on a night when Palmer was hot.”

Stanley, a sophomore forward, continued his recent hot streak with 11 points (nine in the second half), and Thompson added six points.

GIRLS

Coalgate 49, Stonewall 37

Walker, a 6-2 center who was the Ada Evening News All-Area Player of the Year as a junior, was virtually unstoppable against a Stonewall defense without a player taller than 5-9. She was 7-for-9 in the first half and had 14 points and seven rebounds to help the Lady Wilcats (9-7) to a 23-9 lead at the break, then she hit three of her four shots in the third period as Coalgate built a 36-18 advantage heading to the fourth.

“We did a good job of getting Mal the ball in the first half, but I thought we got a little lazy after we got the big lead,” third-year Coalgate Jim Jenson said after watching his veteran club hold Stonewall (15-8) to 11-of-43 shooting and hit 20-of-35 shots but commit 22 turnovers (13 in the second half).

Stonewall stayed in the game almost totally through the efforts of senior guard Tesia Worcester, who poured in 23 points on 7-of-15 shooting, hit four of her seven 3-point attempts and grabbed a game-high six steals. The other seven Lady Longhorns who saw action in the game were a combined 4-for-28, however, and only freshman Mindy Holland — who was 2-for-5 from the field and scored six second-half points off the bench — had more than four points in the loss. Senior guard Cherokee Brown missed all five of her shots on the night but had a game-high six assists, a team-high six rebounds and two steals to go with four free throws.

“That was the ugliest Stonewall-Coalgate game I’ve seen in a long time,” said Stonewall coach Christie Jennings, whose club came into the contest off an impressive 50-35 victory over the OKC Lady Knights in the third-place game at the Stonewall Invitational.

Walker, who finished 12-for-17 from the field, was the only Coalgate player in double figures, but Jennifer Sandmann, Becca Crew and Kalee Pebworth had five points apiece (on a combined 6-for-12 shooting), and Pebworth added six rebounds and a team-high six assists. Crow had four assists and three of Coalgate’s six steals, and senior Jordan Helton hit her only two shots and also dished out four assists in the win.

Coalgate returns to action Friday at Holdenville, while Stonewall will visit Calera Tuesday.