Cardinals’ Cooley gets hot hand, scores game-high 28 points
Published 7:30 pm Saturday, January 9, 2021
- Photo Credit
Rodrick Anderson
LACASSINE — Down six points early, the Lacassine Cardinals needed a spark, and it came from sophomore guard Sydie Cooley.
Cooley scored 20 of her game-high 28 points to lead the Cardinals to a 54-50 win over Reeves at home Friday evening.
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“She is a heck of a player, and she is only a sophomore,” Lacassine head coach Jeremy Hollier said. “She is just the most straight-faced (player) with no change in emotion. She has done that for us all this season.”
Lacassine (13-7) took a 2-0 lead but missed its next four shots as the Raiders took an 8-2 lead on a pair of 3-pointers by Shelby Miller. But Cooley’s 3-pointer with 5:23 left in the first quarter started to turn the tide for the Cardinals.
“We shot the ball a lot this week,” Hollier said. “We didn’t shoot it well earlier in the week against Kinder.
“We have kids that can make shots. We are kind of hitting our stride now. Some of those shots started to fall. We were attacking the basket, the help was able to come, and we were able to kick it out. It is kind of contagious. One kid gets hot, then another kid gets hot.”
Cooley tied the score at 15-all with a 3-pointer 20 seconds before the end of the opening quarter, and Brooke Guillory hit one with 4:03 left in the second quarter to give the Cardinals the lead for good, 23-21.
Reeves bottled up Lacassine forward Vanessa Duhe in the first half but couldn’t contain the Cardinals’ outside shooting.
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“Lacassine has a good basketball team and they made some outside shots tonight,” Reeves head coach Mark Dronet said.
Reeves (10-3), playing in its first game since coming out of a two-week COVID-19 quarantine, fell behind by as many as 13 but went on a 15-4 run to cut the Cardinals’ lead to 40-38 on a pair of free throws Claire Dunnehoo with 1:20 left in the third quarter.
“I think we got a little tired,” Dronet said. “They never gave up. I am extremely proud of that. A lesser team would have laid down there and probably lost by 20 something points. We showed a lot of fight tonight.
“Naturally, it would have been nice to win a game.”
Dunnehoo and forward Faith Cauthron combined for 22 points in the second half to lead the Raiders’ comeback attempt. Cauthron had a double-double with 13 points and 14 rebounds, and Dunnehoo scored 20 points.
“Faith Cauthron was a monster out there,” Dronet said. “She put the team on her back in the second half and refused to go down without a fight.”
Cauthron’s putback made it a 49-48 game with 3:25 left, but Cooley responded with a shot from the corner to put the Cardinals’ lead back to three points.
After being held to two points in the first half, Duhe almost had a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds.
Lacassine 54
Reeves 50
Reeves (10-3): Claire Dunnehoo 20, Faith Cauthron 13. Lacassine (13-7): Sydnie Cooley 28, Vanessa Duhe 12.
Rodrick Anderson/American Press
