Oakton Girls Dismantle Lee, 81-20

has been one of Northern Virginia's girls basketball powerhouses for a number of years, so when coach Fred Priester sends out a Facebook message asking former players to pay the school a visit, they respond.

About 10 Cougars alumni, from the class of 2010 back to 1996, were welcomed at center court Tuesday night at halftime of the game against Lee.

It's too bad they didn't suit up, since the former players might have proved a better challenge for the current Cougars than Lee did.

With two seniors who have signed Division I college scholarships — Zora Stephenson (Elon) and Danielle Davis (Central Connecticut) — the Cougars are hardly a fair match for a team like Lee, which has just one senior, one junior and seven underclassmen.

The Oakton skill showed early, as the first three shots the Cougars made were 3-pointers. Four players made shots from outside the arc in the opening eight minutes—Davis nailed a pair—en route to a 22-8 lead. They limited the Lancers to just one point in the second quarter while Stephenson connected on two more from outside and Caroline Coyer made a pest of herself on defense and worked inside on offense for five points.

The score at halftime was 47-9 and the final 81-20 margin would have been worse had Priester not played the second half of his roster in the fourth quarter. Even freshman Torri Marquis got a little playing time.

"It's great to get the whole team playing. It gets everybody excited, it's just not the people that are on the floor," said Stephenson, who finished with 20 points. "It's great when we have a game where everybody gets to play."

Even more impressive, the Cougars put on the show after running through a 90-minute practice before the game.

"We're trying to make some fundamental changes in the things we're doing and trying to shake the cobwebs out," Priester said.

Seven wins to open the season, and the coach is talking about cobwebs? For good reason. The Cougars leave Dec. 28 for a four-day national invitational tournament in Naples, Fla. The Naples Daily News Holiday Shootout features so many good teams, the Cougars, a team that has been in the Virginia state final four the last two years, could be considered an underdog.

"The team we're playing in Florida is a real good team," Priester said as he visited with former players who nibbled on cookies and drank Cokes in the gym after the game. "Their last game they won 90-0. They beat somebody else 61-1. We don't want to be on the other end of that kind of a tattooing ourselves.

We've got to step up our game. The fact that we've had several games like (Tuesday night), that we're not getting challenged, I've had to put the challenges on the kids myself."  

Madison played well last Friday in the intra-Vienna rivalry game, Priester said. But he revealed the Cougars won 57-46 while being limited to half their normal playbook.

"It's important to come up with challenges," he said. "I got this from a college coach the other day: 'Your purpose must exceed your challenges.'"

Priester posted the scores of Miramar High School's recent lopsided wins in the locker room as a way of motivating his players to practice hard over the next week.

But how hard?

"It depends on his mood," Stephenson said. "I'm predicting that it will be difficult. But we're up for it."

The Cougars face Miramar at 3:40 p.m. Dec. 28 in Naples. Tournament information can be found at www.naplesdailynewsholidayshootout.org.