Cunningham head girl’s basketball coach Eric Meyers said after Thursday’s semifinal win that the two best teams in Class 1A Division II were still standing even though they came into the day as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds.
That played out Saturday in the title tilt as the No. 3 seeded Lady Wildcats squared off with state powerhouse and No. 4 seed Central Plains.
The two teams did not disappoint fans as the Lady Oilers held off Cunningham 39-35 in a defensive thriller to win their seventh state title.
“It’s tough,” Meyers said of the loss. “You get to the mountaintop and one team’s going to shove the other one off. And we got shoved off tonight, but by a good basketball team who’s been here lots of times.”
It was the first championship game appearance for Cunningham since losing to Kingman County rival Norwich in 1988. The Lady Eagles also returned to the finals this year in Class 1A Division I where NHS fell to Olpe.
“The stage was not too big for us,” Meyers said. “To our girls’ credit, we were not in awe of Central Plains. I mean they are a good basketball team, but we were not afraid.
“But you know we just came up a little bit short. Not due to lack of effort for sure. The girls’ gas tanks are empty.”
Cunningham was definitely not intimidated by the Lady Oilers. CHS opened the game on a 13-6 run, through the first 5:33 minutes of the first quarter, behind eight points from senior guard Morgan Meyers and five from sophomore guard Reese McGuire.
However, the Cunningham offense went cold the remainder of the first half. The Central Plains zone defense held the Lady Wildcats to just one field goal – an offensive putback from senior forward Maddi Panek – and a pair of free throws. The Lady Oilers battled back to tie the game at 17-all, at halftime, behind a six-point effort from sophomore guard Brynna Hammeke.
CPHS junior forward Kassidy Nixon led the Lady Oilers to a 5-3 run to open the third quarter, giving Central Plains a 22-20 advantage with 4:38 left to play in the frame. Panek tied the game, at 22-all, on the next Cunningham possession only to see the Lady Oilers take the lead right back with a 3-pointer with 4:06 to play. Central Plains would not lose the lead again the remainder of the afternoon.
Cunningham fell behind as many as six points three times in the fourth quarter. The Lady Wildcats got the lead down to two points, at 33-31, halfway through the fourth, but the Lady Wildcats managed just five points the remainder of the way.
Coach Meyers said his squad had opportunities down the stretch, but the shots just did not fall when they needed to in the final minutes.
“I thought we did a good job of just instinctively trying to trap and jump some passes,” he said. “We did get a couple of turnovers. We just didn’t come down here and cash in. If that three ball of Reese’s goes (it’s a) different game. It shifts a little bit of the pressure on them.”
The long-time Cunningham coach said Central Plains made some adjustments coming out of halftime, which caught him by surprise, which led to Central Plains’ second-half success.
“We watched them in the past and hadn’t seen so much of them running people through the lane,” Coach Meyers said. “And they’ve got a couple of unbelievably athletic girls that catch it in space – in the lane – and if they can’t finish, they can find someone that can. And so they got a lot of easy baskets out of that.
“We made some adjustments to try to sink in a little bit and force them to be a 3-point shooting team, because actually that is not their specialty. But they declined. They didn’t take too many (3-pointers). They did make a couple, but that’s not what beat us. Points around the basket beat us.”
The CHS head coach said, with the lead in the hand of the Lady Oilers late, it forced Cunningham to move out of its 3-2 zone defensive scheme.
“We didn’t want to go man (man-to-man defense) any earlier than we had to because they are really good. In fact, one of their last buckets or two was when we were in man,” he said. “They like to back cut, and it’s really hard to guard that stuff. We had to guard hard because we had to try to deny and get steals, which just played into their hands.”
Five seniors wrapped up their high school career on Saturday afternoon. Coach Meyers said it was difficult to talk about what that group of seniors meant to him personally, the school and the community.
“This is an era of Cunningham basketball that (has come to an end),” he said trying to hold back his emotions. “It’s going to be different for a little while. But I look down at the grade school and I see rising stars. And when that next round comes around I’m going to be in the crowd, and I’m going to be their biggest fan.”
“This is a special group to me because I have coached them since third grade – half of them,” Coach Meyers said. “A bunch of broken hearts in there (the locker room).
“Maddi Panek told me she doesn’t want to not be a part of this basketball team because she knows it’s over. That’s hard, but I told them you will soon realize how great your accomplishments were. And that realization really ought to start any minute now, because they’ve done great things.
Morgan Meyers finished her stellar career with a game-high 15 points, five assists and two steals on Saturday. Senior guard Alayna McGuire posted three points, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot. Panek had a team-high eight rebounds along with junior forward Maddi McGuire. Panek also had five points and a block. Senior Mackenzie Wright played 11 minutes in her final game. Wright played in just a handful of games this season after injuring her knee in the first game of the CHS volleyball season. Senior forward Abby Hansen had one rebound in her three minutes off the bench.
Coach Meyers said the team may have come up just short on the scoreboard, but at the end of the day there were lots of memories and lessons that will live on in the lives of each of the players because of the 2020-21 basketball season and state tournament.
“I know there are people out there that think sports are overrated,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe in some ways they are. But it (basketball) teaches so much about teamwork.”
“You know they all don’t like me,” Coach Meyers said with a chuckle. “And they are not always going to like their boss. But if you work together you can accomplish great things.
“And you have to give 100 percent. You can’t just pick and choose when you work. And this team never did. I knew they were going to fight until the end. I told them this was going to be a four-quarter game before it ever started and it certainly was.”
Cunningham finished the season with a record of 23-3.
