Oakton Stays Undefeated With Win Over Madison

Before Tuesday night, Oakton High School's girls basketball team has rolled over every opponent — sometimes twice over — without looking back, racking up leads of up to 63 points on their undefeated season.

And in the early minutes of their matchup against rival Madison High School, it appeared the Cougars might do the same as they came out with a 14-1 run to start the first quarter.

But Madison, who suffered , wasn't going to make it easy.

The Warhawks (4-3) came back with several runs of their own, hovering within six to 12 points of the Cougars until the third quarter. And though Oakton (8-0) eventually put the lead out of reach en route to a 73-56 win, it was the closest any opponent had come to defeating them this season.

"Madison is a very good team. They're a young team but they're a good team and they're going to cause nothing but trouble for everybody that plays them this year," Oakton Coach Fred Priester said. "We're not going to spend all our time beating people by 20 [points], that's just not the way it's going to be. That's a pretty good size win. We'll learn from this and we won't make some of the mistakes again — and I suspect they won't either."

The Cougars early start, led largely by senior captain Katherine Coyer, startled even Priester, he said. But after a timeout by Madison Coach Kirsten Roberts Stone, the Warhwaks seemed to shake whatever early issues they had, ending the first quarter 23-15 behind several hoops by Madison junior Megan Leduc.

After Katherine Coyer opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer, the Warhawks were able to start reining in the Oakton scoring, shutting down the paint and forcing Oakton to take mostly perimeter shots. It slowed the Cougars down, but not for long: Coyer put up nine points and Oakton out-rebounded Madison offensively, giving Coyer, junior captain Elizabeth Manner and others second or third opportunities to score. Madison struggled throughout the game to stop Coyer, who finished the first half with 18 of the team's 44 points.

"Oakton played a really tough game. They're a very confident team and the Coyers do a great job leading them," said Stone, whose team went into the half down 44-31. "We need to work on defense and gel more as a team."

Scoring in the second half of the game was more even than the first: The Cougars outscored the Warhawks just 14-11 in the third quarter and 15-14 in the fourth, compared with much larger 23-15, 21-16 leads Oakton posted in the first two quarters.

For much of the third quarter, Madison (4-3) answered every hoop Oakton put up, trailing by 10 and mirroring the halftime score 54-41 with two minutes to go.

"The problem when you have all these blowouts is that the team doesn't get in the kind of condition you want them in. When we got in the position where we were having to play people for more minutes, we just didn't have the legs for it," Priester said. "We got tired."

But the Cougars' full-court press, combined with the loss of Leduc, who left the game with a bloody nose after taking an elbow to the face, gave them a 58-42 lead going into the fourth.

Priester said at that point his team capitalized on mismatches: While the Warhawks boast 6'2" newcomer Kelly Koshuta, the Cougars have three players that stand six feet or taller, with Coyer and her sister Caroline hovering nearby. Some rushed Warhawk perimeter shots and missed free throws helped put the lead even further out of reach, as the buzzer gave Oakton a final 17-point lead.

Katherine Coyer led the Cougars with 29 points; Manner added 16.

Henshaw, Leduc and freshman center Koshuta led the Warhawks with 15, 13 and 14 points, respectively.

There isn't much time for rest though, Priester said. The team faces Georgetown Visitation on Thursday.

"It was a good win but it's still early on in the season," Priester said. "We got an awful lot of good looks at the basket ... but we weren't as aggressive as we wanted to be."

Oakton faces Georgetown Visitation at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at home.