Big win for Cougars

Basketball is a game of runs. Greenwood Christian needed one badly at the end of Thursday evening’s game — and got it.

Grace Peters scored a game-high 16 points and spearheaded a 17-2 closing blitz as the Cougars rallied from a seemingly insurmountable deficit for a 44-38 triumph over the stunned Lancers.

“I feel like tonight, we didn’t give in,” Greenwood Christian coach Alan Weems said, “and there was every opportunity for them to do so. Edinburgh was bigger, stronger, and we just didn’t give in.”

Stuck in a 36-27 hole midway through the fourth quarter, GCA (5-5) got its finishing kick started with baskets from Alexis Mead and Allie Dalton. Peters followed with two free throws and a basket to cut it to one, and Mead connected on a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:35 left to give the Cougars their first lead since the opening minutes.

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Peters added a steal and a layup to make it 40-36, the cap on a string of 13 consecutive points, and a three-point play by Grace Apgar with 12.6 seconds left snuffed out any hope of a last-gasp rebuttal by the Lancers.

“The energy in the gym started to pick up once we started to get buckets,” Peters explained.

The Lancers took the lead on an Allie Schooler bucket with 2:30 left in the opening quarter, the start of an extended 15-4 surge that had Edinburgh ahead, 20-10, with 3:32 remaining on the first-half clock. Destiney Ramey capped that run with back-to-back 3-pointers.

Little by little, the Cougars chipped away, creeping to within 22-18 midway through the third quarter on consecutive baskets by Peters and Allie Dalton. Edinburgh stretched the lead back to 32-23 with 6:28 to go in the game on consecutive hoops by Ramey, but GCA wasn’t quite ready to go away.

Mead finished with 10 points and Apgar added eight for the Cougars. Ramey led the way with 12 points and Schooler finished with 10 for Edinburgh (4-6), which lost for the sixth time in eight games.

“This group wants to win,” Edinburgh coach Amy Schilling said. “It’s just right now we’re our biggest enemy in that we just don’t put it together when we need to. I have three seniors, two that have played a lot of varsity, but then I’ve got some pretty young ones that are still learning, so hopefully this is one of those learning moments for them.”