Cats show claws, fend off Niceville in 43-39 win (SLIDESHOW, VIDEO)
PAXTON – Paxton successfully defended its home court Wednesday night, fighting off a late Niceville surge to get a an impressive 43-39 win on a less than stellar shooting night to close the Cats Against Cancer Christmas Classic with a perfect 3-0 record.
The Bobcats (10-2) were led by Alyssa Dupree and Emily Murray who finished with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
View a slideshow from the game »
It was a Murray 3-pointer with 51 seconds remaining in the game that gave Paxton the go-ahead score it would need after Niceville’s Kristen Winston hit a shot in the paint to knot the score at 39-39 with 1:34 to go.
“I was screaming ‘take it out, bring it out,’ and she just stepped right up and with really no conscience and knocked it down,” Paxton coach Steve Williams said of Murray’s shot.
“As a sophomore, she hasn’t been in those spots and that’s huge for her to knock that down.”
Though the Bobcats led for nearly the entire game, they were ice cold shooting on the night. They finished 14 of 53 from the field and were a stubborn 6 of 24 from beyond the arc.
After leading 24-16 at the half, and allowing the Eagles (5-10) to slowly climb back into the game, Dupree was happy to escape with the win.
“When we’re not hitting shots we just have to keep our heads in the game, because it gets frustrating when you’re not hitting shots,” Dupree said. “But our players are mature, and are getting more mature handling that.”
Dupree was held in check for much of the night by Niceville’s Dani Douglas. Douglas scored just six points, but played tough, physical defense on Dupree all game long.
“That was the first time that I had a team really get after me like that,” Dupree said.
Eagles’ coach Cory Hamrick came away pleased with his team’s job on Dupree.
“We were going to double (Dupree),” Hamrick said, “try our best to take one of the better players up here in this county out of the game.
“We did a pretty good job of that.”
Niceville’s Ashley Levesque led all scorers with 13 points and Michaela Mitchell added 10 for the Eagles.
Follow Pat Flynn on Twitter: @PatFnwfdn
