Bill Lusk | WVOW Sports
LOGAN In Mike Tothe's first season on the bench as the Logan Lady Wildcats head coach, it's starting to look as if the Lady Wildcats could be a serious contender in a crowded Class AA field.
Monday night, the seventh-ranked Lady Wildcats continued their hot play in the second half of the season, picking up a signature win and defeating reigning Class AA champion and fifth-ranked Wyoming East, 47-43, before a rocking crowd at the Willie Akers Arena.
Logan has won five straight since opening the season half of the season with a loss to then No. 5 Charleston Catholic and has won seven of its last eight games to improve its record to 12-5.
“This was so good to us because the five losses that we got, four of those losses we had leads late in the game,” Tothe said. “Three of those with two minutes to go in the game and we just couldn’t take care of the ball coming down the stretch.”
Logan also improved its record to 2-5 against ranked competition this season with what Tothe called one of the biggest wins in Lady Wildcat history.
“This win is going to go down as one of the biggest in program history, outside of the state championship of course and then the state semifinals in 2013," Tothe said.
Logan got off to a quick start Monday night, scoring the game's first seven points, starting with a pair of Addyson Amick technical free throws due to an errant Wyoming East jersey number in the official book.
Following the technical foul shots, Amick knocked down a 3-pointer and Payton Butcher scored inside for 7-0 lead with 6:48 to play in the opening quarter sending the Willie Akers Arena faithful into an uproar and prompting Wyoming East to use one of its five timeouts.
“The Logan community gets behind their athletics, and when you get a cheering section here and they get behind the teams, the kids feed off of that, and that was a tremendous help tonight,” Tothe said. “We got off to a great start and we never played behind. We played with the lead for most of the game, that really, really helped with our energy tonight.”
The Lady Warriors would score five of the next eight points out of the timeout to trim the deficit to 10-5, but Logan closed the quarter on an 8-2 run and led 18-7 after one quarter of play.
The lead grew to as many as 13 points in the second quarter when Halle Crouse drained a 3-pointer to put Logan on top 25-12.
Despite 10 first half turnovers, Wyoming East clawed its way back into contention, trimming a 13-point deficit to eight points, 29-21, at halftime.
“We were really careless with the basketball, I don’t know if our energy was where it was supposed to be, and if it was high, it was nervous energy instead of let’s go play,” Davidson said. “We fought back and just didn’t have enough of it.”
Wyoming East continued to cut into the Lady Wildcats advantage, tying the game at 33 on Rylee Brown's 3-pointer with 1:59 remaining in the third, and eventually taking its first lead of the contest with 0:44 remaining in the third quarter, when Alivia Monroe scored on the inside to give the Lady Warriors a 35-33 lead.
“I thought we were finding the open shooter and then it kind of bogged out on us,” Davidson said. “Our defensive energy picked up, especially with that quick spurt, but we are not consistent enough.”
The lead would be short lived however as Crouse drained her second 3 of the game to give Logan a 36-35 lead after three quarters.
Butcher knocked down a free throw 15 seconds into the fourth quarter to extend the lead to 37-35 before Wyoming East scored six straight points in 0:19 to take a 41-37 lead.
Leading by four, Lady Warriors head coach Ryan Davidson elected to pull his offense out and attempt to run clock following a Logan miss.
The plan seemed to work, however, once Logan picked up the defensive intensity, they were able to force five fourth quarter turnovers and swing the momentum back in its favor.
Following the game, Davidson said the final moments of the fourth quarter would be a learning curve for his team and himself moving forward into postseason play.
“We just got careless with the ball. We were trying to burn clock but not be passive and we ended up passing it to the wrong team or out of bounds,” Davidson said. “It’s a learning curve because we have a lot of kids, who have not been in that position where they had to handle it, but we got to be better with it and I got to do a better job of coaching it.”
Logan closed the game on a 10-2 run, taking the lead for good on Crouse's layup with 3:06 to play.
“We have been trying to tell that you got to close out and you got to relax,” Tothe said. “They were looking at me and I was telling them to back up because they were wanting to come out and guard because East was holding the ball and that kind of worked to our favor.”
“It gave us like a timeout, we could rest, and I was just going to scoot them back, give them a minute or so of rest then change the defense,” Tothe said. “Then what happened? East panicked and turned the ball over, so that worked in our favor. We go down and get a basket, take the lead and pull this one out.”
The Lady Wildcats finished the comeback by knocking down 4 of 6 free throw attempts, but no free throw was bigger than the one Butcher sank with 0:04.6 seconds left to put the game on ice.
Amick and Crouse led Logan in scoring with 14 and 12 points respectively while Bam Mosby finished with nine points and Butcher eight for the Lady Wildcats.
“Bam and Payton are two important players, and they may not always lead us in the scoring column, but everything else that they do for us is so huge, and a lot of that you don’t see in the scorebook,” Tothe said. “From the rebounding, and the contested shots, and just controlling the boards and then the defense. (I am) just phenomenal by those two then having (Jaycee) Blair healthy is another big help for us.”
Abi Baker had 11 points to lead Wyoming East in scoring, Cadee Blackburn had nine and Monroe eight for the Lady Warriors, who fell to 9-4 on the season.
“Logan played well, and I have said from day one that I thought they (Logan) were going to be a problem in double-A,” Davidson said. “I am not real big surprised, I think Mike (Tothe) is a really good coach, they got great kids, so they are what I thought they were.”
Wyoming East will host fourth-ranked James Monroe Saturday evening. The Lady Mavericks defeated the Lady Warriors 55-50 on January 21 at Lindside.
Saturday's game will have huge implications on regional seeding with the start of the regional tournaments just over three weeks away.
“Right now, for us it’s about trying to work and do what we can to secure the one seed in the region,” Davidson said. “Just one game, one practice at a time because we got a long way to go.”
With the win, Logan avenged an earlier season loss at Wyoming East, 68-42, on December 19, in a game the Lady Wildcats fell behind by 15 early in the first quarter, but fought back to stay within 8-12 points until the Lady Warriors went on a run in the fourth quarter.
“Coach Davidson does a great job with Wyoming East and they are known for one of the top girls basketball programs in the state for a reason,” Tothe “They come at it for 32 minutes and they come at you 94 feet for 32 minutes.”
“We succumbed early to that pressure early over there, and just got in that hole, and we fought back, but against a good team like that, you can’t spot them 15, 17, 19 points early in the game,” Tothe said. “It’s too hard to try and overtake when we are not as deep as I would like to be.”
Much like Wyoming East does, Logan was able to flip the script on the Lady Warriors and force 17 turnovers in the win.
“A lot of people is not going to believe with what I am about to say, but we didn’t work on Wyoming East until today (Monday) because I don’t like the kids to look ahead,” Tothe said. “We had three days of practice to work on Scott, which that game was Saturday, so I had no prep day for East.”
With no practice and only a Monday walkthrough to install a game-winning defense, the Lady Wildcats were able to throw multiple defensive looks at the Lady Warriors and frustrate them offensively.
“We came in early today for a walkthrough, and we put in this defense that we thought could work tonight,” Tothe said. “To our surprise, I think it really benefitted us and took East out of sync early, and they got us in the second half, which is way I went back to switching defenses. I would go man some, then back to that zone, then matchup zone, I think that bothered them a little bit.”
With four games left in the regular season, and only one remaining with a regional opponent, Poca on February 17, Monday's win could play a deciding factor in determining the second seed of the Class AA Region IV tournament.
Sixth-ranked Charleston Catholic is expected to be the top seed, but the second seed come down to Buffalo and Logan. Neither school met this season, but Tothe hopes Monday's win will propel the Lady Wildcats to the second seed and home court advantage through the co-championship.
“Surely, it should help us with regional seeding,” Tothe said. “We have two losses, and both of those to (Charleston) Catholic where we had the lead, we had a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter and couldn’t hold onto that.”
Logan is back in action Saturday evening hosting Westside, a team they beat 74-31 in the season opener for both schools on December 3.
“We played them earlier in the season at Westside, they got Jamie Lusk back at the helm, he is a state championship (winning) coach, I expect him to have that program turned around and playing well,” Tothe said. “So, no days off for us, we got to come out ready to work and we got to be prepared and hope to execute another game plan to help us get a win.”
(7) Logan 47, (5) Wyoming East 43
Wyoming East Lady Warriors (9-4)
Blackburn 3 1-1 9, Lusk 2 0-0 6, Baker 5 1-2 11, Brown 2 0-0 5, Monroe 4 0-0 8,
Cameron 2 0-0 4. Totals: 18 2-3 43.
Logan Lady Wildcats (12-5)
Amick 4 6-6 14, Crouse 5 0-0 12, Blair 1 0-0 2, Butcher 2 4-8 8, Mosby 4 1-2 9.
Totals: 16 11-16 47.
Wyoming East 7 14 14 8- 43
Logan 18 11 7 11- 47
3-point field goals_Wyoming East 5 (Blackburn 2, Lusk 2, Brown), Logan 4 (Amick 2, Crouse 2).