The Columbia Academy Cougars (20-13) ran into the North State champion Heritage Academy Patriots in the first round of the MAIS AAA Tournament Wednesday night at Columbia Academy and couldn’t quite match the Patriots athleticism.
The Cougars struggled to find any sort of rhythm offensively and had several long possessions trying to find any sort of crease in the Patriots defense in the 35-23 loss, which eliminated CA from the tournament. The Patriots had a wealth of perimeter defenders with exceptional lateral quickness, limiting driving and passing lanes to the inside. The Cougars lack of having a guy like Wiley Cleland last season who they could give the ball to and say, “Hey, go get us a bucket,” was evident against Heritage’s elite defense.
“They took our inside game away by giving us a small window to get the ball to Owen (Harper), and we couldn’t get it there. The perimeter shot, which we didn’t take a lot of, really wasn’t there,” head coach Dale Watts said. “We didn’t have that person that could rise up out there. They took it away from Ras (Pace), Jay-Bird (Jay Stringer) never got a clean look and we just had a bad night. They exposed our weaknesses and we couldn’t overcome it.”
Watts said the Patriots head coach having a few days to come up with a game plan to limit the Cougars strengths and expose their weaknesses played a big role.
“Rush Whiteside does a good job as their coach. He had us scouted out. The thing we say as coaches is ‘Don’t let your weaknesses beat you.’ But when teams take away your strengths, your weaknesses really show up and that was the case,” he said. “They stopped us from getting it inside with the pass and with dribble penetration. Then we weren’t able to really knock down the perimeter shot.”
The Cougars had several entry passes to the post either stolen or deflected and were swarmed every time they tried to drive the ball inside. As the game progressed they tried to take more three-pointers as a counter but couldn’t find the bottom of the net.
The Cougars will be graduating Harper, Stringer and Aaron Thomas, who have all started the past two seasons but return several contributors to this year’s run.
“I’ve had those guys, Aaron, Harper and Jay-Bird for a few years, and they’re good kids and good athletes. They’re going to be tough to replace,” Watts said. “But my 10th-grade class, which will be juniors, as eighth-graders won every game but one and won district. It falls back to those guys. I look forward to that with Tate (Duncan), Ras, Peyton (Rowell) and Ethan (Stringer). We have this spring and summer to work and get better. Being able to replace guys isn’t easy. We weren’t able to replace Wiley and Shea (Stringer). We tried, but we didn’t have (their skillsets).”
The Cougars were an inside-oriented team this season with two bigs that were the strength of Columbia Academy’s attack. Next season, though, the Cougars will be much more perimeter-oriented, fielding more quickness on the floor. Watts said it’s going to be a “totally different” team and a “totally different” game for the Cougars.
Pictured Above: Columbia Academy's Jay Stringer gets around a Heritage Academy defender. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
