Unfortunately for the Westfield crowd, the Lady Cougars had time to answer.

Able to advance the ball on a timeout, the Lady Cougars had an inbound right in front of their bench, and had enough time to make a couple passes until they found junior Kaylee Pattyson, who made no mistake, hitting a close range jumper over a Westfield/Brocton defender to seal the game away.

“We try and get it to the girl that’s open and we look for the best shot there,” said Cassadaga Valley coach Todd Fryberger. “We got it to our big and she came through. She’s one of our best players, she’s only a junior this year and we’re excited.”

The Lady Wolverines weren’t able to get another shot off.

Westfield/Brocton's Juli Smith drives to the basket during Friday's game. OBSERVER Photo by Justin Goetz.

The Cassadaga Valley Lady Cougars (9-6, 4-2) escaped Westfield Academy Central School with a 38-37 victory over the Westfield/Brocton Lady Wolverines (5-11, 0-6) on Friday night. The game featured strong defense on both sides, as both teams struggled to get clean looks.

The Lady Wolverines trailed by a range of one to four points in the final quarter, seemingly unable to tie the game. But when they got the ball with just under a minute to go, Lady Wolverines coach Dave Mathews turned to ‘Rudy.’

With his girls trailing 36-34, the Lady Wolverines called a time out to set up an inbound from below the offensive baseline. Lady Wolverines guards Katie Bodenmiller and Juli Smith teamed up to make a tricky play work to tie the game.

“It’s all false movement, we try to get everyone moving one way and hope they forget about Juli, and they did,” said Mathews. “We call it Rudy, it’s the first time we’ve ran it this year. We just put it in the playbook last week, our inbound plays were getting stale so we needed some new stuff.”

The two teams struggled to find their footing early, with the first basket not coming until over two minutes into action, as Westfield/Brocton’s Mary Conklin connected on a three to break the ice early in the game.

That’s when Pattyson made her first big impact on the game.

Pattyson scored six of Lady Cougars 10 first quarter points, as her size down low was a little too much for the Lady Wolverines otherwise stout defense to handle early on.

The Lady Wolverines would do enough scoring to keep pace, trailing after the first quarter, 10-9, aided by Conklin, who was able to drain a second three in the quarter to keep pace.

The Lady Cougars and Lady Wolverines were even through the better part of two quarter, but toward the end of the second, the Lady Cougars began to take a few extra inches. Westfield/Brocton played a very clean first quarter, but in the second, they struggled to keep Cassadaga Valley off the free throw line.

The Lady Cougars shot 10 free throws in the second, and while they only connected on four of them, the stoppages in play were enough to knock the Lady Wolverines off their tempo of wanting to play in transition. The Lady Cougars closed the second quarter on an 11-2 run, with the final basket coming on a nifty give and go pass from Pattyson to Ruiz, who wound up with a wide open layup. The Lady Cougars walked into the half with a 23-16 lead, finally able to get a little space from the Lady Wolverines.

Out of the half, the Wolverines went on a 6-2 run to start out the third and were able to cut back into the seven point deficit, only trailing 30-26 after the third, setting up the dramatic fourth quarter finish.

The Lady Cougars were led by Pattyson, who scored 10 points, while adding 16 rebounds, four assists, and seven blocks, as she did it all for the Lady Cougars. Bella Ruiz added nine points and eight boards, while Meghan LeBaron had eight points and 21 rebounds.

The Lady Wolverines were led by Laura Johnston, who scored 14 points, while Juli Smith had eight points, and Haleigh Dellow added seven.

The Lady Wolverines are next in action on Tuesday, Feb. 4 as they’ll travel to Sherman to take on the Lady Wildcats at 7:30 p.m., in what will be a “war,” according to Mathews. The Lady Cougars play the Fredonia Lady Hillbillies this morning at SUNY Fredonia, at 11:30 a.m., looking for revenge for the defeat the Lady Billies handed Cassadaga Valley earlier this season.