HUMBOLDT — Thursday’s game with the Cherryvale Chargers was a roller coaster ride for the Humboldt Cubs, but in the end, they were able to defend their home court and prevail 52-44.
The first quarter appeared to set the stage for a lopsided game as Humboldt cruised to a 19-8 lead with Makaylah McCall leading the charge with six points.
“At that point, we were looking to push the ball and we were still running our offenses,” Humboldt coach Aubrey Jones said. “We had a great press going, so we had a lot of points off turnovers. We were still working together and talking.”
The second quarter was more of the same, McCall scored six more points and the Cub lead increased to 33-17 at halftime.
In the third quarter, everything flipped for the Cubs. After McCall opened the quarter with a free throw, the Chargers went on an 11-0 run to cut the lead to six points.
“When we came back out of halftime, we thought we could just do the same thing,” McCall said. “But we ended up not talking and playing lazy defense.”
During that run, Jones became frustrated with her starting unit and inserted five reserve players into the game.
“We weren’t talking or running our stuff,” Jones said. “I, at least, knew with that (bench) group that they would talk and run it. It might not have been our best possible option, but they were going to play hard and do what I wanted them to do.”
The bench unit didn’t fair any better and the run continued.
Jones reinserted McCall back into the lineup late in the quarter and Kaylie Johnson scored to break the Cubs’ scoreless streak, but that didn’t change momentum. Cherryvale junior Michelle Rau hit a three pointer to get the lead down to 36-31 at the end of the third quarter.
Jones put her starters back in to begin the fourth quarter and it appeared that the time on the bench did the trick for the Cubs.
“They wanted to play at that point,” Jones said. “In the third quarter it didn’t look like they wanted to play. In the fourth quarter, they didn’t like sitting and watching and they let it be known. I told them that all they needed to do was speak up and they said they wanted to go.
“It got better. It still wasn’t great, but it was enough.”
The teams traded points to start the final eight minutes, but the Cubs went on a 7-0 spurt — with McCall scoring five of those points — to extend the lead to double figures.
“(McCall) has that ability at any point, whenever she wants to,” Jones said. “She can step up and just take over a ballgame. If we could get her to do that for all 32 minutes, that’d be great. She seems to just like to wait until we are in trouble and then she goes to bail us out.”
The Cubs were able to hang onto the lead until the end and escape with an eight-point win.
