Rome Beats Woodland in Tournament

The scored 19 points in the fourth quarter, more than they had in the three previous quarters combined, but their comeback attempt fell short as the Rome Lady Wolves held strong and won 42-34 in the first round of the Region 7-AAAA Tournament on Saturday.

Woodland played Rome twice during the regular season, losing by 19 points and then by 30. Going into Saturday’s tournament game, head coach Colman Roberts wanted to set a new game plan in motion. But his girls found it hard to score points, as many open shots weren’t falling.

Roberts also made two substitutions in the first 45 seconds of the game, dissatisfied at the effort his team was putting on. Roberts told both girls as they came off the court that if they didn’t box out — or the player they were guarding beat them down the court — they were going to sit the bench.

“You're out, yeah,” said Roberts. “That's what we do. We're usually a lot smaller than people and not as fast. We have to do little things to try and even it up.”

Woodland scored just four points in the first quarter, and then four more in the second, and entered halftime with just eight points. Luckily the Lady Cats were just down by eight, as Rome also suffered from shooting woes.

In the second half Woodland found it difficult to get the ball inside for easy baskets. On top of that, the team wasn’t shooting well from outside. Roberts decided to change things up a bit.

“We were trying to get it to the high post and then we set back-door screens with the guards,” said the Woodland head coach as to why his team started scoring more. “We played better than we did in the past against [Rome], so I'm proud of them.”

Just as the Lady Cats starting putting things together, Rome increased the pressure in the form of a full-court press. The extra pressure thwarted Woodland’s comeback attempt and halted its momentum.

“We just had way too many turnovers and silly passes,” said Roberts. “[We had] a lot of fundamental issues like dribbling with our heads down; things that we're going to work on in the off-season.”

When the Lady Wildcats go to work in the off-season, they’ll do so without three graduating seniors — Ashley Watkins, Livy Rutledge and Jacqualine Howell — said Roberts. That trio accounted for 35 percent of Woodland’s scoring on Saturday. Watkins and Howell scored two points each while Rutledge led the Lady Cats with eight.

Freshman Brooke Hummel showed promise by scoring eight points and gives coach Roberts a nice building block for next season as his team returns eight players.