Defense leads WC past Natchez, into title match

Published 12:00 am Thursday, February 19, 2004

[2/18/04]Warren Central came out tense, but once the Lady Vikes relaxed, the game was theirs.

After committing six turnovers and missing its first 10 shots, top-seeded Warren Central came back to defeat fourth-seeded Natchez 51-46 in the opening round of the Division 6-5A Tournament on Tuesday.

Warren Central (20-8) advances to face Forest Hill in the championship game on Friday.

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“In the first half, we came out and we were really tight,” WC coach Donny Fuller said. “We’re the No. 1 seed and the pressure was on us. I think our kids let it get to them. I kept telling them to just relax and play.”

Wennifer Noble paced the Lady Dawgs with 13 points, and Mable Green added 10.

Coming on strong in the end after a 1-of-11 first half, Cookie Johnson led the Lady Vikes with 14 points and 17 rebounds. Carla Latham added 10 for WC.

“Everybody was just a little bit too ready to play,” Johnson said. “Everybody got uptight. We needed to get looser and get calm.”

Both teams shot below 30 percent for the game and turned the ball over 20 times, but the Lady Vikes held a 48-35 rebounding advantage. The free-throw line also made a difference with WC making 19 of 28 (68 percent) and Natchez hitting only 10 of 22 (46 percent).

“We didn’t take advantage of the free throws we had. We didn’t take advantage of the inside shots that we got,” said the Lady Dawgs’ Deleque Drake, who finished with nine points. “They just came out more aggressive.”

The Lady Dawgs opened with a 10-2 lead early in the first quarter while the Lady Vikes were ice-cold. Warren Central fought back to a 26-25 halftime edge, despite shooting 7-for-38 (18 percent) in the first half.

“When we went in at halftime as bad as we had shot the ball and as bad as I thought we played, and we still had the lead, I felt good about it,” Fuller said. “We kind of got on a roll in the third quarter.”

Helped by eight Natchez turnovers and eight points from Johnson, the Lady Vikes pulled ahead to a 40-29 lead after three quarters.

Natchez trimmed the lead down to four in the fourth quarter on a 3-pointer by Green, but Warren Central stretched it back to eight.

The Lady Dawgs came back again to chop the lead to 49-44 with less than a minute remaining, but got no closer.

“We ran their plays the whole time in practice all week long,” Latham said. “When we do what we need to do, that’s how we shut them down on defense.”