Off The Mat: Stinging Season-Ending loss hasn’t deterred No. 1 Walker Girls from staying unbeaten after test from Huntington
by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Walker basketball coach Korey Arnold gave himself and returning members of his basketball team additional time off before the resumption of offseason workouts.
The top-seeded and unbeaten Lady Cats had been dealt a cruel blow in a 64-63 overtime loss to eventual Class 5A state champion Parkway in the semifinal round.
Walker, which led by 16 points after the third quarter, was outscored in the final quarter of regulation and went to overtime with the defending Class 5A state champions.
Walker jumped out to a four-point lead in the extra session and was 27 seconds away from reaching the state title game against parish foe Denham Springs.
The Lady Cats, leading by two points, went to the foul line for two shots and an opportunity to seal the victory with 6.9 seconds to play.
They missed both free throws and Class 5A Most Outstanding Player, Chloe Larry, delivered arguably the greatest shot in state tournament history – a 65-foot 3-point heave from beyond midcourt – that swished through the net for a numbing 64-63 victory.
While the Panthers ran around in jubilation, the Lady Cats slumped to the floor in disbelief.
“We were devastated,” said Arnold, whose team finished 35-1. “I told them it takes a really strong program to bounce back. There are some programs in the state that wouldn’t be able to bounce back. It would have factored into next year.
“The good thing about it is, I lost four starters off that team,” Arnold said. “The bad thing about it is, I lost four starters. A lot of these kids were role players last year. They didn’t play at all, played JV, or had minimal minutes. For us to be where we are, nobody could have predicted this.”
More than 10 months have been torn off the calendar – a span of 314 days – since that low point, a step away from the state championship game, where Walker’s program has displayed a tremendous amount of resiliency.
The Lady Cats remained undefeated Wednesday, repelling a determined effort from Huntington in a 51-48 victory.
“The last two, three years everybody said Walker’s winning it, Walker’s winning it and never won it,” said Arnold, now in his 13th season at Walker where he picked up his 500th career win Dec. 11 in the Livingston Parish tournament against Holden. “This year we’re kind of flying under the radar. No one thinks we can win it. We’re not the favorites and I’m OK with that. Maybe it takes a little pressure off of us.”
Arnold said Parkway, a two-time defending state champion, and Zachary, have garnered mention among the state’s favorites in 2024-25.
Walker (22-0) is the state’s No. 1 team according to MaxPreps.com and is also the LHSAA’s top-rated team in the Division I non-select power rankings.
Walker’s dominated this season with an average margin of victory of 27.8 points but proved that it can play in tight quarters against Huntington with their fourth victory in games decided by less than 10 points.
The Lady Cats extended their regular-season winning streak to 71 games against in-state competition and have now won their last 50 consecutive home games.
“We put in a lot of work,” Walker leading scorer Arionna Patterson, a UL-Lafayette signee. “We worked hard this summer and I’m so proud of this team for having that chip on their shoulder even though they didn’t play last year. We appreciate our team getting better. We’ve gotten way better from the summer.”
Overcoming a slew of errors to prevail
Huntington (8-4) made the trip south to Livingston Parish after opening District 1-5A play on Tuesday with a 73-53 victory over Captain Shreve.
The Lady Raiders returned two of the state’s top guards in seniors Carley Hamilton and Kyndal Graham from a team that was upset in last year’s by Woodlawn-Baton Rouge in the Division I select semifinals.
“I think they’re the favorite on the D1 select side,” Arnold said of Huntington. “They have three Division I guards (including Kendal Stevenson). There’s nobody in our division that has three guards like them. I felt like if we could guard them, we could guard anybody.”
Huntington also had a defensive team similar to Walker which matched the Lady Cats’ athleticism and quickness, leading to an abundance of turnovers.
Walker’s able to unleash its relentless pressure defense and full-court pressure causing 21 turnovers a game which was the case again against Huntington.
The dilemma, though, was the Lady Cats being able to stand up to the Lady Raiders’ pressure on the perimeter and full-court pressure, resulting in 24 turnovers.
“The only complaint is we have to be more ball-conscious late in the game,” said Arnold, whose team shot 35.7% (15 of 42) from the field and was 6 of 19 from 3-point range. “I thought we had some turnovers because we were tired. One of the things we always preach in our program is you can’t let being tired stop you from doing the right things. I thought at times we could have extended our lead, but we turned it over and gave them easy buckets. We found a way in the end to hold on.”
Walker lost a 30-20 lead in the final minute of the first half and led 30-24 after back-to-back layups from Huntington’s Kaylie Dupree, the latter of which took place after a steal.
The Lady Cats restored a 38-28 margin midway through the third quarter after five of Patterson’s game-high 27 points, and Kadyn Green’s free throw.
Huntington reeled off a 9-0 run, converting a pair of steals into layups from Jakiyah Redman and Hamilton who put back in her own miss, and Kyndal Graham’s 3-pointer reduced Walker’s lead to 40-39 with 59 seconds to go.
The teams exchanged baskets when the third 3-pointer from reserve guard Logan Cookmeyer at the buzzer provided a 45-41 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Fight to the finish
Patterson, who had 15 points in the first half, extended her team’s lead to 47-41 with a pair of free throws 13 seconds into the final quarter.
The Lady Cats held a 49-44 lead on Patterson’s floater on a second-chance opportunity with just under six minutes to play when the Lady Raiders made one final charge.
Hamilton, who had a team-best 20 points, pulled up in the lane for a jumper, and it was her driving layup with 4:12 to go that left Walker with a 49-48 lead.
With Patterson limping back onto the court after battling leg cramps following a timeout, she took an inbounds pass and drove around Huntington’s 2-3 zone for a basket – the final points of the game with 3:19 showing.
“I enjoyed this very much,” said Patterson, who was averaging 16.8 points a game. “I hope the team really takes this as a message because we kind of got in our heads a bit that once we get tired, we can’t keep pushing. They fought and I’m so proud of them.
“We couldn’t do the small things,” Patterson said. “We let fatigue get in the way a little bit. They closed the deficit to one because of small things like stepping to the ball and that caused them to get six to eight points on runouts. Once we got past that, the mental part, you have to continue to fight past the wall.”
Huntington, which shot 35% (19 of 54), missed its last six shots of the game, including Jamari Bell’s game-tying try for a 3 with 27 seconds left.
Patterson limped off the court for a timeout and returned to help Walker deal with Huntington’s full-court pressure. The Lady Raiders tried fouling to get the Lady Cats into the bonus, but to no avail when a late turnover resulted in a desperation heave that was well off the mark.
“The first three years she’s kind of been in and out of the lineup,” Arnold said of Patterson. “I called her in the spring and said if that’s going to continue what you’re going to do, just transfer because you’re not going to help us win any more games than we’re supposed to with you. If you get in the weight room, get in the gym, and work, I said we can go as far as you’ll take us, and she took that personally.
“I wasn’t changing,” Arnold said. “I told her I was going to expect her to play hard every game and you’re going to have to play through injury and play while you’re tired. She grew up a lot. She matured as a person, and she met the challenge that I put in front of her.”
Getting their attention early
Arnold said his team’s growth was jolted by another low moment, one that was more than eight months after its state semifinal defeat.
The Lady Cats, who were in the process of replacing four starters and approximately 75% of their offense from last season, were matched with reigning Division IV select state champion Southern Lab in a LHSAA Hall of Fame game to usher in a new season.
It didn’t go very well.
Even though the game is regarded as an exhibition and doesn’t count against a team’s record, Arnold took it personally that his retooled club lost by such a wide margin and let them know about it.
“The only way you lose by 30 is you’re not prepared which is my fault,” Arnold said to this team, “and you don’t play hard which is your fault. We both took ownership. We came back to practice, and we got to work. We’ve drastically improved since then.”
Arnold said there were whispers about what level of play this year’s team may be capable of.
Instead of being compared to some of Arnold’s most recent teams that have either contended for district titles or made deep runs in the postseason, this year’s team was made to feel less of itself.
He simply said to tune out the noise, much like he’s trying to strike the same chord over his team’s perfect start to the season.
“If you watched us play about two months ago, we got beat by Southern Lab by 30, they laughed us out of the gym,” he said. “I told our kids at that point you can’t believe what everybody’s saying because you’re going to be a really good team. We were young.
“Now teams are saying we’re really good,” he said. “I told them to be careful. I said you couldn’t believe you were really bad, now you can’t believe that you’re really good. Stay in the middle and I think we’re doing a good job of that.”
Patterson said the bulk of the team’s leadership has fallen on the shoulders of herself and fellow senior guard La’Shante Clay, a Copiah-Lincoln (Miss.) signee.
Patterson’s one of the team’s three double-figure scorers with Cookmeyer, a junior, averaging 11.8 points and sophomore Kadyn Green adding 10.1.
The roles have been more pronounced for players who have witnessed a tremendous leap in their playing time and impact on the team’s success.
“We play a system style of basketball,” Arnold said. “It’s important that everybody does their job. It’s not all on one person. I thought everybody, even though they didn’t score, did their job. They got a rebound, took a charge, dove on the floor.”
Patterson said the end result of last year’s final game, coupled with a perceived slight about this year’s team, has fueled high expectations for this year.
“Everybody felt the pain, even people that didn’t play in the Parkway game and we didn’t want to feel it again,” she said. “We have a big chip on our shoulder. We’re going to pray that we get past the semifinals and to the finals because we don’t want to feel that again.”