With a little more than 24 seconds remaining, the Capital City Lady Cavaliers had time to run their offense.
The shot just didn’t fall.
“With that much time left, we should get a pretty good look when we do that,” Capital City coach Ashley Agee said after the Lady Cavaliers dropped a 38-37 decision Thursday to the Oxford, Miss., Lady Chargers in the loser’s bracket semifinals of the Jefferson Bank Holiday Hoops Classic at Capital City High School.
“We had a good look early, but we just didn’t take the shot. And that comes down to us not being used to playing in those situations. It’s learning, it’s maturing, it’s experience. But that’s not the play that cost us this game. It was the 57 mistakes we made earlier. If they made one more mistake and we made one less, we’d be happy right now.”
Gallery: Capital City Girls Basketball vs. Oxford, Miss.
Oxford took the 38-37 lead on a three-point play by CC Frierson with :50.7 remaining in the game. The teams exchanged turnovers before Capital City got the ball back after a timeout with :24.1 left. The Lady Cavaliers passed the ball around, getting it inside one time, before a shot from the top of the key grazed off the front of the rim with :02 left.
“The kids are tired it’s going to come, they’re thinking when is that going to happen,” Agee said. “We just need to keep fighting and keep working. It can be tough to keep doing that and not getting rewarded for it. But we’re still working hard.”
It was a slow start offensively for both teams as Capital City led 6-5 after one quarter. The Lady Cavaliers opened the second quarter with a 6-0 run to lead by seven, only to have the Lady Chargers rattle off the next 12 points in a little more than four minutes to take a 17-12 advantage.
The teams traded points the rest of the half, with Oxford’s Alexis Ivy banking in a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Lady Chargers a 23-18 advantage at intermission.
Olivia Waddell of Oxford opened the second half scoring with a 3-pointer to extend the Lady Chargers’ lead to 26-18. Capital City then scored the next 13 points to take a 31-26 lead with :25 left in the quarter. Oxford tallied the final basket of the quarter to make it 31-28 heading to the fourth.
Rylea Sanning hit a pair of free throws with 3:24 remaining to give Capital City a 35-32 lead. The Lady Chargers tied it at 35 before two free throws from Jada Anderson gave the Lady Cavaliers their final lead at 37-35 with 1:06 to play.
Anderson finished with a game-high 15 points for the Lady Cavaliers (2-9), who will play Staley (5-4) in the seventh-place game at 1 p.m. today. Staley has dropped its two tournament games by a combined five points.
“We can’t get down, we have to come out and play again tomorrow,” Agee said.
Oxford (9-8) will face Fatima (6-3), a 42-38 winner Thursday against Staley, in the fifth-place game at 2:30 p.m. Frierson finished with nine points to lead the Lady Chargers.