Lady ’Cats fall to Fayetteville; Lady Rockets clinch Div. II SHAC championship

FAYETTEVILLE — Wednesday was a battle for the Southern Hills Athletic Conference Division II championship, as it was Fayetteville outlasting the Whiteoak Lady Wildcats, 58-45 to win the title.

The win for the Lady Rockets leaves them with an 11-1 SHAC Div. II record with one game remaining, while Whiteoak’s SHAC record falls to 10-3, leaving them in second place for a second consecutive season.

For the past three seasons, WHS has finished in first or second in the SHAC Division II standings, while the Lady Rockets are repeating as Div. II champions.

“Our girls showed a lot of fight tonight, a lot of fight, and I think that's going to carry pretty well into tournament time,” WHS head coach Cole Schaefer said. “Fayetteville is an awesome ball team, and the last time we played we had one for the books, and tonight was one as well.

“We were down eight at halftime, we fought our way back. We were down a starter ourselves, but we found our way back. That's that's all you want to see as a coach, is that fight and that continued fight from all five girls that were on the floor and the girls on the bench that were keeping us in the ball game.”

The game was played close by the two teams, even with Fayetteville having a seven-point lead twice in the first quarter, as they led by a 9-2 score with 5:03 left in the first following a 5-0 start, and took a 7-2 lead following three consecutive baskets by Aubrey Barber, including starting the scoring for Fayetteville with a 3-pointer.

Whiteoak’s Addy Hauke hit a jumper with 5:38 left in the first for Whiteoak’s first point of the game.

Later with 3:07 on the clock, it was a basket by Torie Potts of WHS, followed by a free throw from Jillian Lucas that left WHS trailing by just four points at 9-5 with 2:29 left in the first quarter.

Fayetteville answered with five of the next seven points scored, to build a seven-point lead for the second time in the frame, but Whiteoak ended the first with a 3-pointer by Charli Hauke with 8.3 seconds left on the clock for a 14-10 deficit for WHS.

Fayetteville led by eight points when halftime arrived by a 27-19 score, outscoring Whiteoak 13-9 in the second as Addison Roberts scored four points in the second for WHS, and teammate Addy Hauke made a 3-pointer and two free throws in the quarter for the Lady ’Cats’ nine points in the frame.

Fayetteville had four players score points in the second, including five points by Cara Rummel, a 3-pointer by Ava Baker, three points from Ryley Kleemeyer and two points from Christine Murphy.

Whiteoak played a little stronger in the third frame, winning the quarter at 17-14. They came out of the locker room with five straight points as Lucas hit a layup, and Addy Hauke drained a 3-pointer for a 27-24 deficit with 6:50 remaining on the clock.

Again, the quarter saw Fayetteville lead by seven points on three occasions, and by as many as eight points with 1:13 left for a 40-32 lead.

Whiteoak answered with points from Potts and Charli Hauke to make it a four-point game, but Fayetteville scored one final point in the third off a free throw made by Scarlett Crawford for a 41-36 Fayetteville lead after three frames.

The Lady ’Cats had a second consecutive strong start to a quarter, beginning the fourth frame with a 3-pointer by Roberts, a free throw made by Potts, and they took their only lead of the game with a layup off a steal by Charli Hauke with 5:36 left in regulation for a 42-41 score.

Fayetteville rallied back with six consecutive points to take a five-point lead, and eventually had another run of scoring that was an 11-0 run to end the game as multiple fouls were called on the Lady ’Cats, which sent Fayetteville to the free-throw line.

Fayetteville ended up outscoring Whiteoak 17-9 in the fourth frame.

“The second half, I just told them we have nothing to lose. We’re fighting for a SHAC championship tonight. We wanted to carry momentum into into the tournament. We have four games this week, and this is the second one of our four this week,” Schaefer said. “So I told them the adjustments we were going to make, and we were on the same page. We came out and we lit it up there for a second, and we fought.

“We have a very young team, and it's always good to get that late-game experience in those type of games where you have to start fouling and you have to start making key takeaways at the end of the game. That kind of knowledge and experience is invaluable in high school sports, and these girls every single day show that level of high IQ that you want to see.”

For the game, Fayetteville was 11-of-18 from the free-throw line, while also totaling 16 two-point baskets and five 3-pointers.

They were led in scoring by Rummel with 15 points, finishing the game with four two-point baskets, two 3-pointers, and she was 1-of-2 from the free-throw line.

Aubrey Barber totaled 14 points with four two-pointers and two 3-pointers.

Totaling 11 points for the Lady Rockets was Murphy off four baskets and a 3-of-4 performance from the free-throw line.

Fayetteville also had eight points from Kleemeyer, five points by Baker and five points from Crawford.

For the Lady ’Cats, Roberts led the way with 11 points, finishing the game with three two-point baskets, a 3-pointer and she was 2-of-2 from the free-throw line.

Addy Hauke totaled 10 points with two 3-pointers, a two-point basket, and she was also 2-of-2 with her free-throw shooting.

Also scoring 10 points was Lucas, making two shots from the field, plus she went 6-of-8 from the free-throw line.

Scoring seven points each for Whiteoak were Charli Hauke and Potts. Hauke ended with two two-pointers and a 3-pointer, while Potts made three baskets and was 1-of-2 from the free-throw line.

As a team, Whiteoak totaled 11 two-pointers, four 3-pointers, and they were 11-of-14 from the free-throw line.

BOX SCORE
WHS    10 09 17 09 — 45
FHS    14 13 14 17 — 58

FAYETTEVILLE (58) — A.Barber 4 (2) 0-0 14, C.Rummel 4 (2) 1-2 15, A.Baker 1 (1) 0-0 5, R.Kleemeryer 2 (0) 4-6 8, A.Cossmeier 0 (0) 0-2 0, S.Crawford 1 (0) 3-4 5, C.Murphy 4 (0) 3-4 11. TOTALS: 16 (5) 11-18 58.

WHITEOAK (45) — C.Hauke 2 (1) 0-0 7, J.Lucas 2 (0) 6-8 10, A.Roberts 3 (1) 2-2 11, A.Hauke 1 (2) 2-2 10, T.Potts 3 (0) 1-2 7. TOTALS: 11 (4) 11-14 45.

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