Keller junior celebrates 17th birthday with 29 points in comeback win vs. Timber Creek
Last week, Keller junior guard Cambridge Mathews was honored before a home game after scoring her 1,000th career point. She dropped 26 points in a win vs. Southlake Carroll.
There was no denying Mathews that night, just like the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s home game against Keller Timber Creek in a key District 4-6A girls basketball showdown with first place on the line.
Playing on her 17th birthday, Mathews scored the first 16 Keller points of the final period as the Indians rallied back to beat the Falcons, 56-49. Keller improves to 17-5 overall and 9-1 in district.
The loss drops Timber Creek to 13-6 overall and 7-2 in district.
“I started the game a little rough, but in the second half coach made an adjustment on defense and we made the switch,” Mathews said. “We needed the W in order to get the first spot in district so I had to turn it on.”
Trailing 43-39 early in the fourth after a Deja Lumsden layup, Mathews knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to give Keller a 45-43 lead with under four minutes to play.
Keller never trailed again.
“It was a wild fourth quarter. Timber Creek is a good team and really aggressively with us. It took us awhile to get going, but we made an adjustment in the second half and just chipped away,” Keller coach Kate Goldberg said. “In the fourth quarter, we came around and packed it in and forced them to make a mistake. We were getting steals and being a little more patient on offense.”
Mathews, who had a game-high 29 points, hit her third 3-pointer of the quarter and scored on a layup while drawing a foul to make it 50-45. She would miss the free throw, but on the next Keller possession, she was good on the unconventional 3-point play to push the margin to seven.
Mathews extended her run to 16 straight with another layup until Keller got its 17th and final point of the fourth quarter on a Renee Chmiel free throw. Chmiel scored nine points for the Indians.
“It was the biggest game of district. Once we sat back on defense and kept it tight, they weren’t able to shoot it from outside,” Chmiel said.
Timber Creek, which won the first meeting, got out to an 18-13 lead after the first quarter with baskets from Mia Topping, Theresa Kailahi and Lumsden, all winners of DFW player of the week this season.
Mathews made a lefty layup to pull Keller within three, but Lumsden and Kailahi helped extend the Timber Creek lead to 22-15 midway through the second quarter.
Mallory McQuietor and Mathews helped give Keller a 12-5 run that saw the Indians take a 27-26 lead, their first lead of the night since it was 3-2 early in the game.
Timber Creek would lead 28-27 at intermission. The Falcons tied their largest lead of seven at 41-34 in the third quarter. Lumsden paced Timber Creek with 15 points. Topping and Kailahi added 12 and 11, respectively.
Keller finishes the season with Fossil Ridge on Friday and Byron Nelson next Tuesday.
Timber Creek still has Keller Central, Southlake Carroll and Eaton on its schedule.
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 12:28 AM.
