Story and Photos by Rusty Ellis
The Livingston Academy Lady Wildcats trailed by eight points with less than four minutes remaining in regulation on Tuesday, but battled back and earned a 47-42 win in double-overtime.
Cumberland County controlled the game early, as an Abby Houston three gave the Lady Jets a 9-2 lead in the opening minutes of the contest. Livingston managed just a single basket the rest of the frame and trailed 11-4 heading into the second.
The Lady Wildcats got off to a better start in the second and cut the lead down to 11-8, but six straight points by the home team pushed the lead back to 17-8. When the second quarter buzzer sounded, LA found themselves down 17-10.
Livingston came out with better energy in the third quarter, scoring the first seven points of the frame to tie the game and outscoring Cumberland County 11-2 in the frame to take a 21-19 lead into the fourth. Freshman Ellie Butler capped the quarter with the go-ahead layup to give LA their first lead of the game.
The madness continued in the fourth quarter, as the Lady Jets appeared to take full control of the game at 31-23 with just under four minutes remaining in regulation, but a layup from Butler, a free throw from Allie Qualls and two three-pointers from Keaton Webb gave the Lady Wildcats another lead at 32-31.
Livingston pushed the lead to two with a free throw before CCHS’ Emery Baragona tied the game on a layup with 24.6 seconds remaining. Both teams had opportunities for the win, but missed and the game went to overtime tied at 33.
The two teams remained within arms reach of each other on the scoreboard, with the best opportunity to win the game coming with 11.4 seconds remaining. Cumberland’s Aliyah Hawkins got a steal and appeared to have an easy lane for a layup, but the late contest by Livingston forced a miss and the game needed four more minutes to be decided.
There, the Lady Wildcats proved to be the deeper team and closed out the win on two Butler free throws to run the score to 47-42 for the final.
Butler led the way with 14 points, while Webb added 12 points for head coach Leslie Riddle.
“We’ve said it all season: this team has been in every position possible,” Riddle said. “They’re not alarmed when they’re down…They made it so hard for us to score, and we found some ways to score in the third, but the defense really kept us in the game.”
The defense weathered an early run that saw Cumberland seemingly take control, but once they buckled down, the Lady Wildcat defense was the difference in the game for Riddle.
“We gave up the threes early, and we talked about running them off the line,” Riddle said. “They’ve got a lot of weapons offensively, so we just really had to look at the scouting report and see who could do what and guard them tough.”
The boys game saw Cumberland County come away victorious over the Wildcats 50-39.
The two teams battled closely early, as the Jets took a 13-9 lead into the second quarter.
It was there however where Livingston’s struggles on offense began to show through. Defensively, they held Cumberland County’s potent offense in check with only 12 points, but only managed six points of their own. This led to a 10-point deficit at the break for Livingston at 25-15.
The Wildcats didn’t fare much better in the third, as they only scored nine points and were outscored by two. This allowed the Jets to push the lead up to 12 heading into the fourth, where they kept Livingston at an arm’s length to win 50-39.
Cumberland’s Jackson Inman scored a game-high 20 points.
Isaac Story paved Livingston Academy with 14 points, while Hayden Ledbetter followed close behind with 13 points of his own.
Livingston Academy will welcome district foe White County to town on Friday for their next contest, beginning at 6 P.M.
