Audenried Delivers Osbourn Park Their First Loss
The Yellow Jackets' second half surge was not enough to overcome Shayla Smith's Undefeated Rockets
Tip-off between Osbourn Park and the Audenried Rockets at St. James Performance Center in Springfield, Virginia.
Saturday afternoon saw a battle of the unbeatens when the 3-0 Osbourn Park Yellow Jackets faced the 2-0 Audenried Rockets out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The game was part of the “She Got Game Classic” held at the St. James Performance Center in Springfield, Virginia. Despite a gutsy fourth quarter comeback, the Rockets - led by junior playmaker Shayla Smith- won, 58-57.
Osbourn Park sophomore Keyarah Rainey would kick off the scoring with a layup thirty seconds into the game. An early basket by Shayla Smith as well as an and-one from her teammate Aniyah Howard would put Audenried up 5-2 early. Smith would add another basket soon after, each one seeming to have an added degree of difficulty.
Minutes later, OP sophomore Jayel West would connect with sophomore point guard Samia Snead for a three-pointer to knot the game at 7 a piece.
Smith’s final basket of the quarter would give Audenried a 9-8 lead, and the Yellow Jackets would answer with an 8-0 run to end the quarter up 16-9.
The Rockets refused to let Osbourn Park get comfortable, starting the second quarter with a 6-0 run of their own. Shayla Smith would thread a pass from the top of the three point line down low to Aniyah Howard to pull within one point of Osbourn Park at 16-15. The teams would head into the half with OP up 22-20.
Osbourn Park regroups during a timeout to try and slow down the Audenried Rockets.
The Rockets would own the third quarter, outscoring Osbourn Park 21-7. Shayla Smith would score 10 of her 32 points in the period, and Aniyah Howard added in 8 more points. Audenried would lead after three quarters, 41-29.
Osbourn Park would put the foot on the gas and eventually knot the game up at 45 following a pair of three-pointers from freshman guard Peyton Walters. That seemed to only fire up Shayla Smith and Audenried even more. Smith would continue to dazzle with her variety of playmaking. A stepback three-pointer would be followed by two more threes- her final one a good five feet beyond the arc.
The Yellow Jackets would use a late frenzy to catch up, including two more three-pointers from Peyton Smith, but would simply run out of time and lose by one.
I caught up with Osbourn Park head coach Chrissy Kelly afterwards.
“Today we ran into a very tough team led by their best player, Shayla Smith. She’s very dynamic offensively, and we missed a lot of shots and gave them too many scoring opportunities. Now we need to move on and prepare for our next game on Monday.”
Monday sees the Yellow Jackets (3-1) travel to Midlothian, Virginia to face the Manchester Lancers (3-1). Their three wins come by an average of 64.3 points, while their lone loss to James River Midlothian was by 6 points.
The match-up is a rematch from last year’s state quarterfinals when Manchester won, 58-50. 6’2 Mia Woolfolk gave OP fits in that game, and leads the Lancers this year as a senior averaging 22.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 5.5 steals per game.
Tip-off is at 6:00 pm.
For more on the Osbourn Park girls basketball team, follow them on Twitter and Instagram.
Getting down to buzz-ness:
Keyarah Rainey led all OP scorers with 15 points. She’d also add in 7 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 assists and 2 blocks.
Alex Brown just missed a double-double, finishing with 14 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 assist and 1 block.
Freshman Peyton Walker had the hot hand from three-point land, going 4-8 with 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.
Osbourn Park shot 19-67 (28%) and 6-26 (23%) from beyond the arc.
Audenried won the turnover battle with 14 to OP’s 20.
The Yellow Jackets shot 55% at the charity stripe, going 12-18.
Osbourn Park would finish with 32 rebounds with 13 on offense.