Varsity girls bring home 2nd place trophy

The Oran High School varsity girls basketball team had a daunting task ahead of them last night in the championship game of the 2016 Delta New Year Tournament.  The 2nd seeded Eagles were facing the number one seed and fifth ranked team in class 3, the Saxony Lutheran Crusaders.

Last year, the Crusaders defeated the Eagles twice, both times by 36 points.

This time, the end result was the same, but the margin was closer as Oran lost 52-30.

Oran led the game 2-0 and again 5-4 after an NBA range 3 pointer by Leah Cauble with 3:58 left in the first.  Saxony scored the next 9 points to close out the period with a 13-5 lead.

The Crusaders continued their run into the second by scoring 8 more points before an Eagle time out with just under three minutes gone. Down 21-5 at that point, Oran out-scored Saxony the rest of the frame 10-6 and trailed by 12 at the break, 27-15.

In the second half, the Eagles got to within 10 at 29-19 with a minute and half gone in the third and had an opportunity to cut the deficit to single digits but were unable and the Crusaders went on a 12-2 run and took a 22 point lead into the fourth.

The two teams played even in the final stanza.

Cauble led Oran, now 9-1, with 16 points and had the team's only 3-pointer.

Jessie Long and Ashlyn McIntosh each added 6 while Brianna Stause had the other 2 points.

Cauble and Tatum May both had four rebounds, Stause had 3 assists and Claire Ramsey has 2 steals to lead the Eagles in those categories.

After the game, Coach Ethan Evans said, "We weren't near aggressive on the offensive end as we needed to be. At halftime we only had 12 shots which is not near enough. Defensively I thought we played well in spurts but to beat a team like Saxony you can't have any breakdowns. We wanted to use this game as a measuring stick to see how we stacked up against the best in the area. Now we know what we need to work on."

Oran was 12-40 on 2 point field goals (40%) and for the second game in a row, only 1-8 from three (12.5%).  They also shot uncharacteristically poorly from the free throw line, hitting just 3 of 8 for 37.5%.

The Eagles will be back in action next week at Chaffee for the Scott-Mississippi girls basketball tournament.  The junior varsity takes on East Prairie on Monday at 7:45 pm.  The varsity plays Scott City at 5:45 pm on Tuesday.

What the professionals had to say:  seMissourian  photogallery