Fort Osage's run ended with a thud

Editor’s Note: Retiring sports writer Dick Puhr is chronicling his top 10 memories of his 48 years at The Examiner over a 10-week period. Here is No. 4.

Victory No. 28 of the 1994-95 high school girls basketball season would have been special for veteran coach Dale Williams and Fort Osage.
On March 4, the Indians entered the Class 4 state quarterfinals at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium 27-0 and were favored to defeat a Park Hill team they had beaten 46-43 earlier in the season.
One more victory and the Indians would advance to the final four for the first time.
After all, the Indians had the greatest player in school history and arguably the greatest in area history in Betty Lennox. She could pass, shoot, jump, rebound and score.
But 25-percent shooting (15 of 60) and Lennox fouling out for the first time in her high school career with 2:53 remaining resulted in a heartbreaking 55-50 loss before a big crowd.
“It was one of my toughest losses ever,” said Williams, who retired after the 2006-2007 season with more than 500 career wins, including more than 300 at Fort Osage.
“We lost because too much pressure was put on Betty to do it all. We had a good team around her, but wound up with her having the ball too much.
“She was trying to do everything. That’s why she fouled out.”
Lennox remained in the game after picking up three fouls in the first quarter.
“I would do it again, just the way I did it,” Williams said in the game story of leaving Lennox in the game. “She’s done that before. She shouldn’t have picked up that third foul. She was just being too aggressive.”
A 13-0 run enabled Park Hill to go ahead 41-30. The Trojans’ victory margin would have been bigger if not for horrendous 7-of-22 free-throw shooting in the fourth quarter, including missing the front end of seven consecutive one-and-one attempts.
When Fort Osage got down by 14 points early in the fourth quarter, Williams ordered his players to foul.
“I wanted to cry as poorly as were shooting from the free-throw line,” Park Hill’s Courtney Stepp said in the game story at the time. “I couldn’t believe it.”
And the Indians took advantage, rallying to within four points. But when Lennox fouled out with 17 points after shooting just 4 of 22 from the field on an uncharacteristic off night, the handwriting was on the wall for the Indians. Another starter, Rebecca Adams, had fouled out earlier.
“It was a devastating loss and unexpected,” said Lindsey Thompson, a former Fort Osage assistant under Williams and current William Chrisman head coach who scored 12 points for the Indians that night. “We were caught with the cockiness bug. We were pretty sure of ourselves. It was one of the most frustrating times of my high school career. I wish we had lost earlier in the year. We were playing to lose and not to win.
“It was an amazing year. It seemed like the media was always there. There was a lot of pressure.”
The loss in some ways didn’t surprise Williams.
“They were good enough to be with us at the beginning of the season,” he said, referring to the underdog Trojans. “They improved all season, as well as us. We thought we were going to win the game. The game swung in the fourth period.”
As for Lennox, she went on to excel at a junior college in Texas, then at Louisiana Tech University and with five Women’s National Basketball Association teams. She is now with the Atlanta Dream, an expansion team.
As for Fort Osage, it still hasn’t advanced to the final four.