Addie Brown scored 17 points and Emma Wright had 11 as the visiting Braves went on a 9-0 run to close the game and stunned the Cougars 41-38 at Ron Kash Court.
“That’s called playing tough and hard and pulling your way back from a deficit,” said Wright, who played with a face mask after suffering a broken nose Monday. “We weren’t going to give up until the last second. If we lost, we were going to say we gave it everything we’ve got. I think we did that.”
“We really dug deep, and it was just incredible,” Brown added. “I can’t even describe it. It was so fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better game.”
Talawanda led 18-8 in the second quarter, then trailed 35-23 late in the third. Switching defenses and increased pressure boosted the visitors’ comeback, while Edgewood tallied just three points in the fourth period.
The Cougars missed a 3-pointer in the final seconds and fell to 16-2 overall and 9-1 in the SWOC. They still control their own destiny with two conference games remaining, and they’ll host Little Miami on Saturday.
The Braves are 13-6, 8-2, and will be at home against Northwest on Saturday.
“It feels good, but we want it bad, so we’re counting on Little Miami,” said Talawanda’s Hannah Hurst, who knotted the game at 38 with a long 3-pointer with 1:06 left. “Every time we play Edgewood, it’s a game of momentum. Sometimes they have it, sometimes we have it. But I knew we’d get it back.”
The Braves earned a sizable advantage on the boards, getting 13 rebounds from Katlynn Woodruff, 10 from Wright, seven from Hurst and six from Brown.
“I just liked the poise of the team,” Talawanda coach Tom Head said. “Their girls came back and were poised too. I can’t say enough about both programs. It’s just one of those games that nobody should’ve lost. But we’re kind of glad it wasn’t us.”
Lauren Gerber tied her career high with 19 points and snagged six boards for the Cougars. She fouled out with 1:27 remaining, and the senior’s absence was evident.
Cierra Lipps added seven points and seven rebounds for EHS.
“We don’t have a lot of girls who have played in moments like this,” Edgewood coach Greg Brown said. “We had plenty of opportunities to win. We just didn’t cash in on them. That’s the game. That’s just the way it rolls.
“Our lack of rebounding hurt us. We gave them too many extra touches on the ball. We didn’t have a lot of turnovers, but we had some crucial ones. I think we had a mind-set for some reason of playing not to lose in that fourth quarter instead of being in attack mode and doing the things that got us there.
“We still hustled. As a coach, when you go in the locker room and look at their faces and they gave everything they had, the scoreboard’s irrelevant at that time. This is a high school sport in which these girls worked their butts off tonight. Unfortunately, hard work sometimes doesn’t equate into a W.”
The Cougars, who had won nine straight games and beat the Braves 31-28 in Oxford on Jan. 4, were 6 of 11 from the foul line. Talawanda was 11 of 20.
Wright’s nose injury occurred in Monday’s loss to Wilmington, and she’s set for surgery on Feb. 15. That’s the day Division I Cincinnati sectional play begins, so she won’t be available for the postseason.
“It stinks,” Wright said. “But that just makes me want to play harder in these regular-season games.”
Asked about playing with a mask, she said being on the court is her priority at this point.
“That’s just playing through adversity,” said Wright, who will play at Grand Valley State University next season. “They said if I got hit with the mask on it would hurt, but if I got hit without the mask, I would’ve gone through the roof. So I said, ‘Mask.’ It’s kind of a distraction in the middle of my face, but you do what you gotta do. Some people said I looked scary, so maybe it’s a good thing.”
“Emma’s as tough as they come,” Head said. “That’s a lot of pain to be in to play a game that hard. She deserves a lot of credit.”
Hurst only made one shot all night, but it was huge. Her deep bomb was one of the Braves’ six 3-pointers.
“I just caught the pass from Emma, and I was just feeling it,” Hurst said. “As soon as I released it, I knew it was going in. It felt great. I’m happy with it because it wasn’t my role this game to score, but I stepped up when I needed to.”
Woodruff scored seven points for Talawanda, which committed 17 turnovers. Edgewood only had six, but three came in the fourth quarter.
The Braves have won or shared every SWOC title since the conference began in 2012-13.
“We need some help,” Head said. “Either way, it makes for a nice season for the girls. A game like this, you just want to make sure they give their very best effort and have no regrets. If they do that, then we’ll walk off that floor and take whatever comes. That’s how we won tonight.”
“I feel good about this team,” Addie Brown said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity, but I’m really happy with where we’re at right now.”
Greg Brown feels his squad will bounce back with a strong effort against Little Miami. The Cougars defeated the Panthers 45-42 in overtime Jan. 7.
“These girls have been resilient all year long,” Brown said. “This just makes things a little bit tougher on us.”
Talawanda 10-8-8-15—41
Edgewood 8-4-23-3—38
TALAWANDA (13-6, 8-2 SWOC): Emma Wright 2 5 11, Gabby Lindley 1 0 2, Addie Brown 5 4 17, Katlynn Woodruff 3 1 7, Hannah Hurst 1 0 3, Kyra Koontz 0 1 1. Totals: 12-11-41
EDGEWOOD (16-2, 9-1 SWOC): Jessa Brown 1 0 3, Tori Childers 3 0 6, Lauren Gerber 6 6 19, Cierra Lipps 3 0 7, Emma Allen 1 0 3. Totals: 14-6-38
3-pointers: T 6 (Brown 3, Wright 2, Hurst), E 4 (Brown, Gerber, Lipps, Allen)
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