Thanks to St. Elizabeth Healthcare Sports Medicine for sponsoring our girls’ high school basketball coverage once again this season. See all of our girls’ basketball stories here and watch for state tournament coverage March 8-12 from BB&T Arena on the campus of Northern Kentucky University.
By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
A good team effort trumped an outstanding individual performance in Cooper’s 55-50 win over Ryle in girls’ high school basketball on Wednesday.
Ryle sophomore guard Lauren Schwartz scored 32 points and snagged 17 rebounds in the best game of her varsity career. But Cooper had three double-figure scorers who got most of their points during a second-half rally to come away with the victory in the 33rd District seeding game at Ryle.
After getting off to a 1-3 start, Cooper has now won five consecutive games with four of them coming on the road.
“The biggest thing I preach is team,” said Cooper coach Nicole Lavendusky. “We’re not going to win games individually. We’ve got to play as a team. If we can’t play as a team, we’re going to have a short season. That’s what it all comes down to.”
The Jaguars worked together much better in the second half of Wednesday’s game and outscored Ryle, 33-21, to erase a seven-point halftime deficit. The comeback was led by senior post player Hailey Anderson and junior guards Lexi Held and Asyah Mitchell. They had a combined total of 27 points in the second half.
Held finished with 15 points, followed by Mitchell with 12 and Anderson with 11.
In the third quarter, Held scored eight points and Anderson had seven during a 21-10 run that put Cooper ahead, 43-39. Held hit a pair of 3-point shots and a runner in the lane to spark the rally.
“I just let the game come to me and when it comes I just try to keep up the momentum and involve my team as much as I can because you can’t win by yourself,” Held said.
Mitchell nailed a 3-pointer at the start of the fourth quarter and ended up scoring seven of the Jaguars’ 12 points in that final period to help nail down the victory.
“The biggest thing was we just have to settle down and play our game,” Lavendusky said of the second-half comeback. “It was just a great team effort.”
Ryle coach Katie Haitz was very disappointed with the way her team played, except for Schwartz. She made 12 of the Raiders’ 17 field goals and pulled down 17 of their 34 rebounds.
“Lauren showed up, but you can’t only have one player. You have to have a team to take care of everything,” Haitz said.
In the first half, Schwartz had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead Ryle a 29-21 lead. She only made one basket in the third quarter when Cooper went on top. Then she scored nine of the Raiders’ 11 points in the fourth quarter, but her team wasn’t able to regain the lead.
“That’s the one thing we’ve been working on, not relying on one person,” Haitz said. “We’ve got a lot of talent on our team and we have to learn to use that talent among each other. It just didn’t happen tonight.”
Ryle ended up shooting 37.5 percent (18 of 48) from the field compared to Cooper’s 32 percent (17 of 53). The Raiders also had a 34-28 rebounding advantage, but the Jaguars outscored the home team, 17-9 at the free throw line.
COOPER 14 8 21 12 – 55
RYLE 11 18 10 11 – 50
COOPER (6-3): Rivera 2 0 4, Mitchell 4 2 12, Anderson 2 7 11, Held 4 5 15, Smith 2 1 5, Nicholas 3 2 8. Totals: 17 17 55.
RYLE (8-9): Miller 1 0 3, McGregor 0 1 1, Branson 2 0 4, Schwartz 12 4 32, Brooks 0 2 2, Scherr 2 2 6. Totals: 18 9 50.
Three-pointers: C – Mitchell 2, Held 2. R – Schwartz 4, Miller.