LINDEN — Saturday afternoon the North Montgomery Chargers and the North Putnam Cougars has a game that had about every twist and turn imaginable. In a game that saw multiple runs by both teams, it was the visiting Cougars who pulled out a 58-50 win.
North Montgomery scored the first six points of the game before the Cougars scored 11 straight to take an 11-6 lead. North then scored seven straight to lead 13-11 and the two teams were even at 15-15 after the first. The biggest run came when the Cougars used a 13-0 run to lead 30-21 in the second and took 33-25 lead into halftime. Things looked grim for the Chargers to begin the third as the Cougars drilled three straight threes to begin the third on a 9-0 run and hold a commanding 42-25 lead. The last runs of the game came from the Chargers as they used an 8-0 to end the third and another 10-0 run to get the score to 52-50 with just over a minute in the game. That is as close as the Chargers wold get as the Cougars Lexi Daigle made six straight free-throws to seal the Cougar win.
“We had the challenge of not only playing North Montgomery, but also have a Saturday afternoon game right after a Friday night one,” Cougars coach Curtis Lawrence said. “The girls responded very well to that and we got contributions up and down the lineup today. I’m very proud of the way this weekend went for us going 2-0 .”
Down 52-50 the Chargers even had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. The duo do Piper Ramey and Macee Norman did everything they could to keep their team in the game. Norman scored 22 to lead all scorers with Ramey added in 18 with 12 rebounds while Norman also had nine. Charger coach Ryan Nuppnau had mixed emotions after the loss loving the way his team battled back, but also knows just a small stretch is what put his team in that large deficit to begin with.
“It reminded me of the Southmont game on Thursday where we play so well for 29 minutes and there’s a small three minute spurt that cost us,” he said. “The end of the second quarter where they go on that run to take an eight point lead into halftime then the last 45 seconds of the game where we cut it to 52-50, then just fold in the final minute. The positive thing is that our girls just battled their tails off after getting down 17. Piper and Macee really came to play today and wanted to bounce back from Thursday’s game and the fight to get back to a two point deficit was great for these girls.”
North Putnam (7-10) was led in scoring by Daigle’s 15 points. Rose Haste added 10 while the trio of Melanie Davies, Jasmine Duvall, and Hailee Daigle all scored eight. Jenna Day added five and Addisyn Osburn scored four. For the game the Cougars shot 19-45 (42%) from the floor and fired away from three point range going 9-25 (36%) from distance. They made 11-17 (65%) of their free-throws, grabbed 27 rebounds and turned the ball over 14 times.
North Montgomery (8-10) was led by both Ramey and Norman. Caelyn Carpenter did add four points and Lily Graham and Krestyn Bradford scored three. The Chargers shot 19-47 (40%) from the field, but couldn’t match the firepower that the Cougars had from three going just 1-6 (16.7%). North shot 11-16 (68.75%) from the line and grabbed 34 rebounds while turning it over 16 times.
The Cougars after a brutal stretch of games in December which saw them lose six straight against the likes of Edgewood, Parke Heritage, and Indian Creek have now gotten back on the right track according to Lawrence.
“We’ve got an experience group and these girls have dealt with adversity in plenty of games in their careers,” Lawrence said. “This afternoon was another example of us being able to weather the storm. We just needed to get that clock to zero and when you have an group with that experience it definitely helps. We need to start honing in some things as the sectional isn’t far off and this weekend was a good start for us.”
The Cougars will be back in action on Friday when they take on rival Greencastle. Before the Cougars take on the Tiger Cubs, the Chargers will head to Greencastle on Tuesday .
