Hosting at home, the Wildcats prowled over Sallie B Howard, 43-27, winning their first playoff game in program history in quite some time. Sallie B Howard was 0-8 on the road ahead of the matchup and could not find a way to shut down the cherry picking transition offense of Columbia getting outsped late.Â
Columbia started the game out running and gunning, as Columbia would leave Sallie B. Howard in the dust early on on a 7-2 run. The quick start was yet to make Sallie B adjust to the outmatched power punch offensively of the wildcats.Â
The offense continued to put points on the board jetting away, not stopping the gas going into halftime on a 11-2 stretch with the score being 18-4 at the break. Sallie B. Howard rebounding wise came to the fight in the second half mainly offensive glass getting mostly second chance buckets in the second half.Â
Going into the second half, Sallie B showed grit tenacity and resiliency taking that four and boosting it into much more. Sallie B lifted the confidence after the first half, bringing the game back to a 10 point margin 25-15 at the end of the third quarter.Â
The defense would be the key late, and the Wildcats would scrap late into the fourth quarter as Columbia would finally jump on Sallie B for the fatality of the charter school’s postseason.Â
With the back and forth offense in the paint in the fourth quarter, Columbia would have point guard 15 be assertive in handling the basketball and would have multiple possessions finding 30 backblock. Sallie B for a second year program stayed in the fight all night long regardless of the deficit but could not bring the game within 6 in the second half.Â
At the end of regulation, the dancing was on as the postseason first round was done and the Wildcats were hitting a move to the second round of playoffs.Â
The Wildcats only graduate one player in the summer development could come in this could be a Wildcat team to recreate the trajectory of Columbia Girl’s basketball.