Titans end Cougars AAC win streak with 52-49 victory
12/8/2022: The Cottage School Cougars played host to the Tapestry Charter Titans. Tapestry, like Cumberland, have been an AAC member for some time but have only played on the JV level until this season. The Titans won the JV title for the first time in their school history last season and that team is off to a great start in 2022-2023. The Titans have now swept the AAC in the first go around after beating TCS 52-49. It marks the first AAC loss for the mighty Cougars since February of 2019 when AASD defeated them in the final that season. Since then, Cottage has gone 26-0, until last night.
The Titans broke out to a sixteen-point lead with 3:38 remaining in the fourth period and still held a fifteen-point lead (47-32) with just 2:48 on the clock. What did your Cougars do…never give up! TCS forced ten Tapestry turnovers and got help with some Titan missed free throws coming all the way back. Shortly after Cottage called their last timeout, they found themselves down 47-43 with just under a minute to play. After two more missed Titan free throws TCS could have cut it to two points but an errant pass to a streaking Cougar for an easy lay-in was out of reach for a turnover. Cottage ran out of time and Tapestry held on with the 52-49 win.
Neither team could figure things out offensively in the first half as TCS held a slim 17-15 edge. It was the third stanza that did the home team in. The packed crowd witnessed the Titans knocking down several shots in a row scoring 19 third quarter points. At the end of the frame, Tapestry marched out to a 36-24 advantage putting the Cougars in catchup mode. Coach Briggs spoke after the game; “We have not earned this game yet. We must continue to work. This new and inexperienced team needs to value that respect before we can feel good about defeating a team that, right now, is better than us.”
TCS will come back tomorrow night on the road to face a tough GIAA team, but old rival, Brandon Hall. The game is at 6:30 PM at BH. Cottage is now 6-4 and 5-1 in the AAC.
Games Notes
Braden Kramer led all scorers with 29 points and 5 steals.
Jackson Barnes played every minute of the contest and did not have a great offensive night with just one basket but did lead the team with 13 rebounds and played tough defensively.
Andrew Dorsey got in foul trouble early but turned it around in the second half. He finished with 11 points and 9 boards.
Weston Kershner also played all 32 minutes and was outstanding defensively.
Jack Kane logged more minutes than his average with his team facing some guys down and did well. He pulled down 8 rebounds and scored 6 points.
