Carl Albert girls lose tight game to Piedmont
Carl Albert’s Kamryn Sutton pushes the ball up the floor against Piedmont.
By Jacob Sturm
Staff Writer
The moment the Carl Albert crowd had been waiting for finally arrived with less than a minute to play, but the feeling of excitement quickly turned to anguish.
In a45-44 loss at the hands of Piedmont, the Carl Albert girls basketball team couldn’t quite recover from an early deficit. The group almost immediately trailed from the opening tip before finding their collective footing and remaining competitive the rest of the way.
The main problem came behind the arc, where Piedmont (12-6 overall) didn’t hesitate to fire up shots. The Wildcats produced makes from distance consistently to snatch momentum while managing the game tactically.
That didn’t stop Carl Albert (14-3 overall) from cutting into the deficit throughout the game until taking a 44-43 lead with 55.4 seconds left. Ariana Diaz, Ausha Moore and Kamryn Sutton led the way for the Titans on the night in the narrow defeat.
Then came Piedmont’s lethal offense spreading the floor and retaking a lead on a simple shot near the baseline. The Titans had a chance to win it, but couldn’t get a clean look and settled for a tough shot to end it.
Carl Albert coach Kyle Richey said Piedmont’s hot shooting was not a surprise and said they can flat out shoot it.
“We miscommunicated on a couple of screens and they knocked some shots down,” Richey said. “That’s something we’ll look at film and work on.”
Richey said his team played much better in the second half but couldn’t close out the game.
“I don’t think we played our best first half,” Richey said. “The energy was a lot better in the second half. We just didn’t make the play at the end that we needed to. So, we’ll learn from it, and when we get in this situation again we’ll be ready.”
