WOODVILLE &8212; One team hadn&8217;t touched the ball in over a week, and another team was missing one of its primary scorers.

And with both teams not missing much intensity on the defensive end, it made for a game that made even the scorekeeper yawn. Both Oak Forest and Tensas Academy used its half-court defense to stay in the game with the offense sputtering and shots hitting nothing but iron.

The result? Only 50 combined points as Oak Forest took a 26-24 win at the WCCA Shootout Thursday.

&8220;We hadn&8217;t practiced or played since the 19th,&8221; Oak Forest head coach Joe Fekete said. &8220;I knew we&8217;d be a little rusty, but I figured I&8217;d let them have time off for Christmas and be a little hungry to play. They played a little better in the second half. I was happy to get the win.

&8220;We&8217;re playing a little bit better all around and a little more patient on offense. We won&8217;t beat you one on one &8212; we&8217;ve got to execute to be able to score.&8221;

Neither team executed properly on the offensive end most of the game as the final score indicates. The Lady Chiefs had problems in the end when they squandered a seven-point lead in the fourth and couldn&8217;t get a shot to fall the final four minutes.

Absent for Tensas was scorer Tabitha Howard and Jordan Lentz, forcing head coach Chuck Bauerle to shuffle the lineup. It was Howard&8217;s first game to miss this season.

&8220;Those Oak Forest girls are a good little team,&8221; Bauerle said. &8220;I don&8217;t know what we shot, but I really don&8217;t have anything to complain about other than the offensive end. (Howard and Lentz out) kind of messed up my rotation. Megan (Bauerle) has always played inside some, but I had to start her inside.

&8220;You just kind of miss that extra, and we&8217;ve got the kind of ball club we can&8217;t afford to have one or two people out. Depth gets to us a little bit.&8221;

The Lady Chiefs had no one to score down the stretch after Aubrey McEacharn hit two 3-pointers in the second half when Oak Forest opted to play a zone defense instead of its customary man. Caity Rogers had their last bucket at the 4:24 mark when she hit one down low for a 24-17 lead.

But Oak Forest went to a man defense in the halfcourt and went to a little zone press to get the momentum back.

&8220;We pressed the ball and made them force shots they wouldn&8217;t have shot, especially when they had the lead,&8221; Fekete said. &8220;They killed us on the boards. Offensively, they killed us on the boards. Then it was six minutes to go, and we were down eight. Then we pressed a little bit, caught up and brought it within four.&8221;Oak Forest took a one-point lead when Chelsie Butler scored off an in-bounds play under the goal with 2:11 left, and neither team scored for almost two minutes until Tensas put point guard Elizabeth Lee on the line with 24 seconds left.

Lee hit the first and missed the second one, Megan Bauerle pulled down the rebound to give the Lady Chiefs a chance to take the lead.

Paige Plaisance missed a shot, and the Lady Chiefs were called for an offensive fould.

Tensas then put Butler on the line with 5.6 seconds left, and she missed the front end of a one-and-one. But Oak Forest intercepted a pass down low just before time ran out.

&8220;We always do that in the fourth quarter,&8221; said McEacharn, who led Tensas with 12 points. &8220;It always goes down to that. I don&8217;t know &8212; we always lose it in the fourth quarter. It was the offense that wasn&8217;t there. But they&8217;re a good team, and this will help us for district &8212; playing the good teams.&8221;

The game was so low-scoring that Tensas had to fight back to take a 12-10 lead at halftime. Oak Forest got buckets from Butler and Lindsey Oliver to take a 17-16 lead &8212; a score which stood for over two minutes before McEacharn canned a 3-pointer for a 19-17 lead.

That score stood until the fourth quarter.

&8220;We took some bad shots, and they took some good ones,&8221; Chuck Bauerle said. &8220;But nobody took many good shots, did they? We had our moments here and there, but if you score 24 points, you&8217;re not going to beat many teams. It was just sloppy on the offensive end.&8221;

The Lady Chiefs held Sierah Brabham to two points and denied that back-door screen Oak Forest likes to run after the first quarter.

But Butler finished with 12 points, including a running jumper in the fourth to ignite the OFA offense at the end.

&8220;She&8217;s a freshman, and she stepped up big tonight,&8221; Fekete said. &8220;She stepped up and hit some big shots. We only had 26 points, so she was big.&8221;