Published: December 02, 2008 10:55 am            

Wrong side of history: Coach Rennie, Lady Rams fall to Cahokia for the first time

By PAUL T. WILCOXEN

paul.wilcoxen@register-news.com

CAHOKIA — Since joining the South Seven Conference about a decade ago, the Cahokia Lady Comanches have found pinning a loss on Sara Rennie and the Lady Rams of Mt. Vernon to be a more difficult task to undertake.

But after Monday night’s South Seven tilt, perhaps one player’s name will be added to the record books as being responsible for scoring the winning basket to end Cahokia’s futility against the Lady Rams.

With three seconds left and Mt. Vernon leading 60-59, Cahokia’s Patria Hill found herself underneath her own basket, with the basketball and not a Mt. Vernon defender in sight.

The junior did not disappoint the Comanche fans as she dropped down the game winner and left just three seconds on the clock for the Lady Rams to try and respond.

“At times I’m looking around wondering how we are really in the game,” said Rennie. “They go to the boards hard. They play great defense. We fought as hard as we could fight, but I just think that they were deeper than us and they had more scorers than we did. They rebounded harder than we did and played better defense than we did.”

The Lady Rams were fortunate to be in the game late after Cahokia took a 59-52 lead on a 5-0 run, only minutes after a pair of free throws from Mariah Fleming cut into the Comanches’ lead, 54-42.

“There were times where we didn’t capitalize on the mistakes they made,” said Rennie. “We had them with 13 seconds to go and all we had to do is play solid defense and they get a wide open lay-up. What’s that say about our defense? A girl standing wide open on the right hand side of the basket making a lay-up to win the game for them.”

With 2:20 left, Ronita Long knocked down a three from the baseline to trim the lead, 59-57.

The Lady Rams scored three straight points from the free throw line with Long and a pair from Fleming that gave Mt. Vernon a 60-59 lead, which was the team’s first lead since the 7:09 mark to start the third quarter.

“All things being equal, we could have won it at the free throw line and we didn’t,” said Rennie. “That was key. I know we missed several, and throughout the game I didn’t think we shot free throws very well. In a one or two point game you’ve got to look back at, could you have done a better job at the line, and obviously we could’ve. We didn’t take advantage of some of the free throws that might have iced that game earlier and the last couple of minutes of the game we were playing more from ahead instead of behind.”

Mt. Vernon even had the ball with less than a minute and only needed to take care of the basketball and hit free throws, but with 45 seconds, the Lady Rams were called for a traveling violation, giving the ball back to Cahokia.

“We wanted to try and use some time off the clock and we got a turnover because we fell down with the basketball,” said Rennie. “It’s little things like that. We’ve got to do a better job and we’ve got to clean up those little things.”

Cahokia was successful running the clock down before Hill’s bunny from close range, which gave the Comanches the lead for good.

With just three seconds left and coming off a Mt. Vernon time out, coach Rennie says that her team got the play off that she wanted to run to take the final shot of the game, but Fleming was unable to overcome contact as she lost the basketball as time expired.

“It was discouraging,” said Rennie. “We had three seconds left on the clock and I really felt like we had a pretty good inbounds play. I think we got the ball at the middle of the floor to Mariah Fleming and I really felt like she got fouled, but you’re not going to get that call at the end of the game.”

After being frustrated over the weekend during the final day of the Lady Wildcat tournament in Salem, Fleming bounced back strong with her best offensive outing of the season with a 37 point performance to lead all scorers.

“I thought, for the most part, we had a [good] effort,” said Rennie. “We were playing hard. I thought it looked like we were playing a lot harder than we were on Saturday. I felt like there were some improvements there in their intensity in playing this game.”

Cahokia had three in double figures and were led by Kandice Travis, who scored 15 points.

Joanna Coleman and Fredricka Walker each chipped in 14.

“I thought we fought hard when we got behind,” said Rennie.

“I really liked our intensity when we got behind to make plays and make some things happen. They did everything they needed to do.”

Long scored 13 for the Lady Rams, while she and Fleming led the way with eight rebounds each.

Mt. Vernon (1-5) will play at home for the first time on Thursday when it hosts Effingham St. Anthony.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.