Cordele — His individual numbers weren’t eye-popping, but Landon Whitman’s play off the bench gave Crisp County High’s Cougars the spark they needed Friday to avenge a previous 54-47 loss to Worth County’s Rams.

“Landon was the energizer for us tonight,” Cougars’ head coach Terry Smith said after watching his host team edge the guests, 56-50, and in the process better their record to 6-11 overall, 5-4 in the Region 1-AAAA ranks.

“He didn’t score a lot, but the points (4) he did get came at key times plus with the football mentality he brings to the basketball court he did a good job both on the boards and on defense and that’s what really got us going.”

Crisp’s Lady Cougars also got in on the winning action, offsetting a lackluster first half showing with a solid post-intermission performance on their way to a 47-21 win over a Lady Rams’ team they earlier beat 57-21.

Both squads have a pair of outings on tap this coming week, traveling to Dougherty High on Tuesday at 6 and visiting Monroe High at the same time on Saturday.

Cougars 56, Rams 50

After a see-saw first quarter that featured six lead exchanges in the first four minutes of play, Crisp looked as if it might seize control of things when it went up by nine at 21-12 three minutes before halftime.

By intermission, though, Worth had pulled to within six at 23-17 and then with 3:05 gone in the third period forged ahead 28-27.

The lead see-sawed back and forth for the remainder of the canto before the Cougars went ahead for good at 37-36 on a basket by Javoris Cooks.

Shaquille West’s second “Alley Oop” dunk  of the night on assists from Cooks gave Crisp a 10-point lead at 51-41 1:13 from the finish and that proved to be enough of an edge for it to hold on and end a two-game skid.

“The biggest thing that got us this win was our full-court diamond press as we generated a lot of our offense off steals we got from it,” Smith said.

“We started out in it and pretty much stuck with it. Then when they did cross mid-court we went to a 1-2-2 zone unlike down there when in losing to them by seven we played a lot of man-for-man.”

Cooks and Davion Harvey led the winners’ scoring with 11 points each. Now 8-9 overall, Worth had the game’s two top marksmen in Dante Cooper with 15 and Timothy Gaint with 13.



Score by Quarters

Worth County 8-9-19-14 — 50

Crisp County 12-11-14-19 — 56

Scoring

   Worth County (50) — Timothy Gaint 13, Kendarious Collier 1, Dontae Cooper 15, Anfernee McLemore 4, Justin Green 9, Brandon Moore 8.

   Team totals: field goals 17; free throws 11 of 19 (57.9%); fouls 18; 3-pointers — Gaint 3, Cooper 2; fouled out — none.

   Crisp County (56) — Kerrion Harris 7, Javoris Cooks 11, Davion Harvey 11, Taylor Walls 3, Montre’ Hartage 6, Eddie Morgan, Clement Burnam 2, Primetime Hamilton 6, Rashad Buckholts, Montel Richard, Shaquille West 6, Landon Whitman 4.

   Team totals: field goals 22; free throws 9 of 19 (47.4%); fouls 18; 3-pointers — Harvey 3; fouled out — none.

Lady Cougars 47, Lady Rams 21

After an extremely low-scoring first half that was about as exciting as watching paint dry, one team — Crisp — finally got untracked while the other continued to plod along.

From their advantages of 6-5 and 10-5 at the first two period breaks, the Lady Cougars ran off 14 unanswered points within a three-minute span of the third stanza to go up by 19 at 26-7.

Kristina Melton answered with six straight points for Worth to make it 26-13 entering the final turn where Crisp kept gradually pulling away. The final 26-point spread at the end represented its biggest lead of the night.

“Neither team started out very well while going scoreless for the first five minutes of play and it wasn’t until we came out in a press to start the second half that we started playing like we were capable,” coach Barrett Wilkes said.

“Making that change on defense resulted in us picking up our intensity level and helped get us some quick scores off several of the 17 steals we converted either into lay-ups or put-back baskets.”

Playing without its top performer, Nasheema Oliver who sat out three-plus quarters for  what Wilkes would only say was “a team issue that we handled,” Crisp was led in scoring by Nisha Waters with 16 and Kayla Green with 12.  That pair also yanked down a combined 19 rebounds.

Melton finished with a dozen points for the now 2-15 Worth squad.

Score by Quarters

Worth County 5-0-8-8 — 21

Crisp County  6-4-16-21 — 47

Scoring

Worth County (21) — Kristina Melton 12, Andrea Davis 4, Alexis Hamilton 2, LeKristen Jones 2, Tavashia Williams 1.

Team totals: field goals 7; free throws 3 of 14 (21.4%); fouls 13; 3-pointers — Melton 3, Davis 1; fouled out — Melton.

Crisp County (47) — Nisha Waters 16, Dee Dee Williams 6, Deletria Colson 3, Kayla Green 12, Nasheema Oliver, Alexis Felton, Daja Chambliss 2. Niqueria Jones 2, Miah Burks 6.

Team totals: field goals 20; free throws 7 of 8 (87.5%); fouls 14; 3-pointers — none; fouled out — none.