Conroe head coach Tamisha Houston has a routine at home games of pulling her team into the auxiliary gym across the hall from The Pit for her postgame chat.
A week ago after a big win over College Park, Houston noted that there wasn’t a lot of excitement in the room.
The Tigers more than made up for it Friday night after a thrilling and massive win over Oak Ridge.
As Houston walked through the door this time the Tigers jumped up and down and screamed a happy scream after a 44-43 down-to-the-wire District 13-6A win over the War Eagles.
Junior Taylor Smith split at the free-throw line with 6.7 seconds in the game to take the lead and Oak Ridge and Conroe scrummed for the ball in the paint down the other end of the floor as time expired.
The Tigers (15-9, 8-5) slid into fourth place and into the playoff picture with three games left and now have a tied season series with Oak Ridge (16-16, 8-6). It’s also Conroe’s longest winning streak of the year at four consecutive wins and its first win over the War Eagles in six tries after Conroe won five straight dating back to the Tigers’ last win in 2022. The 15th win also matches Conroe’s total from a year ago.
Smith was fouled in the paint, Oak Ridge called a timeout and the junior hit the front of the rim on her first attempt.
“I was a little nervous because I knew it was high-stakes free throws,” Smith said.
Addeh Houston, “That was the classic ice-the-shooter situation.Make her think about it. And I basically just told her that she is going to make these and this is what we are going to do after she makes (the second one).”
Smith swished it for the one-point lead.
“Everything was going through my mind,” Smith said. “One more. One more shot. You win the game. So I just locked in. Did my normal routine. Stepped up and made that shot. It felt great.”
Oak Ridge tossed the ball up the floor and into the paint as players from each side fought for possession until the buzzer.
Smith ended up with a team-high 10 points. She also led Conroe in its last game on Saturday with 15 against New Caney.
The junior forward got to the line as a result of possessions going back-and-forth with the 43-all score tied. Oak Ridge’s Jordan Daigle made a jumper with 2:50 left and the score was frozen there – perhaps some leftover ice from the weather earlier this week – until Smith’s heroic free throw.
“The biggest thing was Taylor continued to play,” Houston said. “She went and she wanted that rebound, she got that rebound and went up with it. The result worked in our favor and she knocked down that free throw.”
It wasn’t a perfectly played game. Conroe blew a six-point lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter – its biggest lead of the night in the tightly-contested game.
“I think that we did a better job of staying up, staying together and continuing to fight,” Houston said. “I think we told them to play until the final buzzer.”
Senior Alisa Sneed had a nice baseline drive to the hoop and freshman Every Cumpian had a successful steal and drive to the hoop on the other end to go up 39-33 at the 6:25 mark.
Oak Ridge trailed by seven points in the fourth quarter during the first meeting – a 37-32 War Eagles win on Dec. 10.
This time, Oak Ridge went on an 8-0 run, led by four points from Synarea Reece and a pair of buckets by Kylee Jameson and Aniya Morman. The War Eagles were up 41-39 with 4:24 left.
“When they went on that run and tied, I was like ‘Oh my God, here we go’, Houston said. “Not again.”
Conroe went back up on a nice jumper made by sophomore Maliyah Harrison and a bucket underneath by Smith to go up 43-41 at the 3:01 mark. Daigle’s jumper to tie it at 43-all was the last field goal of the night at the 2:50 mark.
The first half was just as competitive.
The game was tied at 9-all after the first quarter and 17-all at halftime.
Both teams saw plenty of action from the free-throw line with Oak Ridge missing six attempts in the second quarter while Conroe was a little better with a pair of early misses in the first quarter and a 5-for-7 first-half total.
Tigers junior Riley Gross led with six points at the break. Freshman Kayleigh Phillips had a two-possession stretch in the second quarter where she made a pair of field goals.
Daigle made a baseline shot at the buzzer to send the game into halftime tied. She totaled a game-high seven points at the break.
Conroe had 17 points coming from the bench, 15 scored by the freshmen trio of Phillips (four points), Cumpian (five) and Christy Rogers (six). Cumpian drained an open 3 from the right wing in the third quarter and Rogers made four free throws in the frame as Conroe took a 35-33 lead into the fourth quarter.
“Huge for them,” Houston said. “In those moments, they No. 1, have confidence to let it fly or No. 2, they just don’t know any better and they just go let it fly. Either way, they just have no fear. I believe in those times, just natural basketball happens. When you just go out and relax and you just go play.”
Gross finished with seven for Conroe while Sneed had five.
Daigle led all scorers with 17 while Reece finished with 12 and Jameson had eight.
Oak Ridge is off until next Friday when it hosts rival Grand Oaks.
Grand Oaks, first place and undefeated in district play, hosts Conroe first on Tuesday.
Friday’s win over Oak Ridge will go a long way toward either making the playoffs or at minimum, a possible tiebreaker.
“It was like a playoff game,” Smith said. “That’s what coach was telling us in practice was this was a playoff game. Potentially if we lost, we wouldn’t make the playoffs. This was a really big win for us.”
Houston explained the scenarios to the Tigers ahead of Friday’s game.
“I kind of talked to them today before we broke at shootaround,” Houston said. “I kind of put it out there for them and let them go. This is a playoff game. This is our playoff game right now. We have to take care of business. We have to make sure we do the small things.”
Conroe’s Anastacha McGowen (4), Everly Cumpian (13), Kayleigh Phillips (21) and Christy Rogers (34) react late in the win over Oak Ridge on Jan. 24, 2025. (Chris Zorzi/SportCast Media)
