Sports

Girls Basketball: Cougars Celebrate Seniors with Win

Oakton one game away from perfect regular season

The Oakton Cougars continued their undefeated record with a 66-31 win over Centreville after a Senior Night celebration at the last home game of the regular season.

The Cougars dominated from the start, jumping out to a 7-0 lead with a starting lineup that consisted of all seniors in honor of Senior Night, which the Cougars celebrated before tipoff. The Cougars continued their dominance ending the second half up 39-19.

The Wildcats never scored more than 12 points in a period, with the Cougars preventing them from scoring at all in the fourth to put the final score at 66-31. The victory improves the Cougars' record to 21-0.

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Caroline Coyer scored a game-high 13 points in a game that saw all seven seniors score. Senior Kelsey Wildman scored her first points of the season, rousing a roar from her team and the crowd.

"It was touch and go whether we were going to put her on the team because she hadn't played basketball for five years," Priester said. "But she's just such an incredibly good kid. All the kids love her and all the coaching staff loves her. She comes in every day with a smile on her face."

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Priester continued to gush about the rest of his seniors: "Of course we have two really good seniors [] who get all of the notoriety but the team is the sum of all its parts. We have kids, like Nesli [Ozcan] and Meredith [Burroughs], who have fought through injuries and adversity, providing a level of courage for our team to emulate. Jasmine Zeller gets out there and busts her butt as hard as she can go knowing she's not going to have a world of time, but she comes in and has some big moments for us ... And Kate Dawson is Miss Understated. Every one of those kids has a role in the overall dynamic."

Acknowledging five of the seven have had to play in the shadows of the Coyer twins — two of the most talked about athletes in the state who will be playing for Villanova University next year — Priester said he is proud of the senior class' maturity in handling the twins' notoriety.

"[This class] is a bunch of kids who know who pays the bills, so to speak, but they also know that they can contribute and they're willing to wait their turn, take their opportunity to do the best they can, and be genuinely and sincerely happy for each other and our headliners," Coach Fred Priester said. "The fact that everyone can root for the Coyers is a tribute to the kind of people they are. It's a very selfless group. I think they recognize that being part of this is a good thing."

Meredith Burroughs, a senior who has played varsity for three years, said playing for the Cougars has "meant the world" to her.

"This team is my family outside of home because they're my best friends," she said. "It's so much fun to play with people you trust on and off the court."

She also returned the compliments to Priester, noting fans in the crowd might have the wrong idea about him.

"People just see him during the games and they think he's this angry guy, but really he's just so soft," Burroughs said. "I've had coaches who only care about you as a player, but Priester really cares about you, he checks up on you and he gets to know stuff about you. It's just been really great to have a father figure at school."

Graduating seven seniors will certainly be a loss to the Cougar squad that has gone 99-5 over the last four years, but Priester said he already has ideas for next year. He's been able to give the younger players time on the court thanks to the starting rotation's ability to gain large leads early. He also has the good fortune of being able to pull players from a freshman team that is one game away from being undefeated and a junior varsity team with a winning record.

"I don't think I'm giving away the farm here by saying I already have ideas for next year, and it's going to be radically different from the way we did things this year," Priester said. "But the cupboard isn't going to be bare in the foreseeable future. We'll have great players to work with."

The Cougars play their last game of the season 7:30 p.m. Friday at Westfield. 

Points: Caroline Coyer (13), Katherine Coyer (9), Elizabeth Manner (9), Helen Roberts (7), Karlie Cronin (6), Torri Marquis (6), Meredith Burroughs (5), Jasmine Zeller (4), Kate Dawson (3), Angela Sickels (2), Kelsey Wildman (2)


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