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Piedmont junior point guard Jimmy Guerra slips past a Carl Albert defender Tuesday night. The Wildcats dropped their fourth consecutive game to fall to 4-5. Staff photo Byron Beers
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MIDWEST CITY – After coming through with its best all-around performance of the season on the road against Deer Creek, Piedmont lost its way in a hurry.
The Wildcats dropped three straight games at the SNU/Bethany Basketball Classic and were then derailed on the road by Carl Albert 70-53 on Tuesday.
Piedmont might have been alright if it had any kind of answer for Larry Cunningham. The Carl Albert senior forward poured in a game-high 37 points, including 17 in the first quarter to lift the Class 5A, 13th-ranked Titans.
“We were coming off that great victory against Deer Creek and since then we’ve taken a step back,” said Piedmont head coach Ryan Wagner following his team’s struggles in Bethany.
“We just haven’t played with the intensity that we need to play with. We couldn’t make stops on the defensive end, and we were flat offensively.”
Piedmont, which dropped to 4-5 overall on the season and 4-2 in Suburban Conference play, had just one lead in the contest after a baseline jumper by Jacob Swigart put the Wildcats up 4-2.
Carl Albert jumped out to a 17-7 advantage after Cunningham connected on a jumper at the 2:55 mark of the opening quarter.
The Wildcats stormed back to get to within five points on a Keith Vick basket and a 3-pointer from the left corner by Dale Staley.
But Cunningham and the Titans ran off seven straight points, five of those by Cunningham, to take a 12-point lead into the second quarter.
Piedmont cut the deficit to nine points (32-23) after a fall-away jumper by Vick with 1:44 remaining before halftime, but Carl Albert scored eight of the final 10 points to take a 40-25 halftime lead.
Junior point guard Jimmy Guerra buried a 3-pointer at the 3:00 mark of the third quarter to get Piedmont to within striking distance once again at 48-39, but the Wildcats wouldn’t get any closer the remainder of the way.
Keith Vick led the Wildcats with 16 points, his best offensive output since the opening week of the season.
Jacob Swigart finished with a season-high 13 points. Swigart was the offensive catalyst in the first half where he scored nine of his points. The junior guard scored Piedmont’s first five points.
John Stephens and Guerra each contributed with eight points.
In Bethany, Perkins-Tryon upended the Wildcats 45-44 in overtime in the opening round. Stephens led Piedmont with 12 points.
Hunter Craft and Stephens both finished in double figures with 11 points each in Piedmont’s 48-46 setback to Elgin in the loser’s bracket game.
In their final game on Saturday, the Wildcats dropped a 58-48 decision to Bethany. Guerra led Piedmont with 11 points.
Piedmont will host Western Heights on Friday on homecoming night.
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