It’s hard for a team to overcome a two-possession deficit with less than 10 seconds remaining in a basketball game, especially in the kind of high-pressure atmosphere the Warren Central Lady Vikes played in on Saturday. This pressure led to a lack of execution of the game plan, an overall passive performance against Vicksburg, and a 44-40 loss.

The Lady Vikes had an opportunity to tie the game after grabbing a rebound off a missed free throw from Karry Callahan, but T.T. Sims missed a euro-step layup to cut the deficit to one point. Te’Asia Sims came up with a big steal at midcourt against Callahan and the Lady Vikes were awarded a timeout to draw up a play to send the game into overtime.

When they broke the huddle, they were called for a double dribble, ending any chance at a win.

“I told them if we don’t get the three, at least try to get the two, get a quick timeout, cause we had one left and then try and foul and create some pressure on them,” Warren Central coach Jackie Martin-Glass said. “But unfortunately we turned the ball over and didn’t get a chance to get a shot at the basket and that really hurt us.”

To break the zone defense of the Missy Gators, Martin-Glass wanted her team to swing the ball from side to side to make them get lost in the ball movement.

“You can’t score on the same side you start on,” she said. “I think we got stuck on one side. We had players who made forced or shot some ill-advised shots that wasn’t the best at the time. That hurt us because they sat in the zone and they were hoping we were off shooting.”

The cloud of pressure traveled over to Warren Central’s boys team, as they never led against Vicksburg. While the Vikings were able to cut the lead to single digits in the fourth quarter, coach Bruce Robinson felt that the Gators played to defend their home court and refused to lose the ball game.

Some of the positives Robinson can take away from the loss is how well the team can play as a unit and how well their press defense performed.

“We play pretty good when we’re going to the hole and sharing the basketball,” Robinson said. “A loss like this doesn’t break your season and it can help you refocus. You’re not going to win all of them, of course we wanted to win this one, so I think that’s one positive thing we’ll take out of here is being refocused and coming back to work. It’s not going to get any easier.”

The loss knocks the Vikings (5-5) down to a .500 record in the young season and stops a four-game winning streak, but the team is still a work in progress.

“We’re disappointed but we’re going to be all right,” Robinson said. “One loss is not the end of the world.”