Going into last night's game at Glenelg, No. 13 Wilde Lake had not won a game in two weeks.
The Wildecats had dropped from a second-place tie in the Howard County league standings to a three-way traffic jam in third. And last night, they faced one of the league's hottest teams in the Gladiators, who were coming off a 61-58 near-miss against No. 2 Hammond.
But Wilde Lake (10-4 overall, 5-3 league) ended Glenelg's resurgence and might have begun its own with a 43-34 victory.
"We really needed a big win tonight," said Wildecats coach Kelly Storr, whose team was coming off a disappointing loss to Centennial on Wednesday.
"We needed something to pull the team back together and get up off those two losses that we just had. This win to them meant the whole second half of the season. What we needed was to start on a positive note and get ourselves going."
The Wildecats, who beat Glenelg 56-44 the first time, took a 10-1 lead in the first five minutes.
"That was very uplifting and got our confidence up," said senior guard Kristen Riismandel (10 points, three assists). "Then we wanted to play even harder defense, get the ball more and rebound, steal, whatever we could do to get the ball."
The Wildecats' 1-3-1 zone forced 18 Glenelg turnovers and all but shut down the Gladiators' usually hot outside shooters. Glenelg finished 1-14 from three-point range.
At the other end, the Wildecats dominated the boards, often getting two or three shots. Krista Entrop, a 5-foot-10 senior center, scored 11 and grabbed 10 rebounds.
The Gladiators (10-6, 3-5) cut the lead to four early in the third quarter, but Wilde Lake quickly extended it to 25-17 on Anika Middleton's 17-footer and two Entrop free throws.
Lauren Brown's follow brought the Gladiators within 31-26 to open the fourth quarter, but they never got closer.
Toni White's three-pointer and Entrop's follow put the Wildecats up 36-26 with 5:48 left.
Trailing 40-31, Glenelg coach Randy Wallenhorst resorted to fouling with nearly two minutes left in the game. That part of the strategy worked as the Wildecats hit just 1-of-8 from the line down the stretch, but the Gladiators could not convert on the other end except for three free throws in the final 1:19.
"We missed easy shots," said Wallenhorst, who got 10 points from guard Jill Younce. "The kids, in the second half, finally started doing what we asked them to against the zone and we had at least eight open shots that were easy shots that normally we would hit.
"I think it's just emotional letdown from the [Hammond] game the other day. We weren't ready to play. I can't believe we only lost by nine. It was not that close."