Before beating East Marion in a memorable night Monday, both Columbia Academy squads had a rough go of it against MAIS competition last week.
The Lady Cougars (13-13, 2-2) had a tough time at Brookhaven Academy Jan. 11, losing 59-21 on the road against a really good team.
“Brookhaven’s girls are really good,” head coach Dale Watts said. “We got four teams in our district with Silliman, Brookhaven, Bowling Green and us that will be playoff teams who have a chance to win the state championship.”
Columbia Academy bounced back with a crucial district win Friday at home against Oak Forest Academy, besting the Lady Yellowjackets 48-28. Watts said the Lady Cougars played extremely hard to earn the bounce-back win.
Then in a game that was closer than the final 47-33 score indicated, the Lady Cougars fell to PCS Saturday on the road. Watts said it was close late, but CA got in a situation where it had to foul late and PCS made its free throws.
Watts said some people wonder why he schedules a game on Saturday nights when CA played a tough district game the night before, but he said it’s to prepare for the postseason tournaments when you have to play tough games on back-to-back nights to be able to win a championship.
The Cougars (8-15, 2-2), meanwhile, struggled mightily last week with losses to Brookhaven, Oak Forest and PCS as their 2-0 start in district play evaporated into a 2-2 record.
“Oak Forest beat us pretty bad, and we shot extremely poor,” Watts said. “The next night we played better against PCS and were more competitive with what we were trying to do.”
Both teams will play at Silliman Institute Friday night in district contests before playing host to Lamar Christian Saturday night.
