 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
Photo by Jon Fuccillo/The Advocate
Above and Below: The KMHD studio has been empty since the station’s departure Aug. 10. The timeline for the new station to begin operation is January.
Women go 1-2 in NWAACC, tie for 9th Saints ]
The Advocate
The Lady Saints basketball team struggled through the NWAACC championship tournament last weekend in Kennewick, Wash. going 1-2 and finishing tied for ninth place with Umpqua Community College.
Last season the Saints finished in fifth but this year was just not a good tournament in general for the Saints, according to sophomore Katie Smith.
“We were talking about the little things we had to do during the games all season,” said Smith. “It was the little things we struggled with that hurt us.”
Smith also said it is hard for her to go out that way but wants people to remember her for playing hard and never giving up.
“I am the type of player that never gave up,” she said. “I did only miss one game and I thought I could have played that game. I never thought about this being my last game until just know. It is sad but I played as hard as I could while I played here.”
The winners of the tournament were the Walla Walla Warriors beating Yakima Valley 75-72, with the Warriors Katie Isham being named and the MVP of the tournament scoring 20 points and grabbing eight rebounds in the tile game.
* * * * *
The Saints started the tournament Saturday against the favored Yakima Valley Yaks and fell short 74-53.
“We came out strong doing what we wanted to do,” said Coach Larry Davis. “After a little bit, our offense got stagnant and we were just breaking down and not making good decisions.”
Davis also said the team struggled because a big piece of the offense was missing.
“It's hard to win games when our starting guards shoot 7 of 33,” he said. “We were missing a bunch of inside shots and we were not rebounding. It's tough, especially when they have a Division-1 player in Anna Marchbanks. She was tough on us and we did what we could but we can't win games when that happens.”
Cody Butler, the Yaks head coach, said the reason his team started slow was because the lack of defense his team played.
“Our defense creates a lot of our offense,” he said. “We didn't put a lot of pressure on them until late and that is what ultimately got us into the position to run away with the game.
Davis said, “We are not the most physical team here but we need to play better if we want to win games. But we definitely learned from that game. We need to keep our composure and even though we are losing, we need to play 40 minutes of basketball.”
*****
The next day, the Saints took on the Lower Columbia Red Devils in what many coaches called the game of the tournament, said Davis.
With five seconds left and the Saints up three after sophomore guard Brittany Yates shot double bonus free throws, Lower Columbia's guard Mollee Schwegler came down and made a three pointer. But the shot came right after Head Coach Chad Meadows called timeout to zero out her three-pointer that would have tied the game with .56 seconds left on the clock.
“Usually in that situation, we call a timeout and she knew that,” said Meadows. “But she knew what play we wanted to run and looking back on it, I guess I shouldn't have called that timeout.”
Davis thought the game had been tied before realizing a timeout was called and was shocked the three-pointer didn't count.
“I didn't understand why we were giving her so much cushion,” he said. “As soon as she shot it and made it, I put my head down but then I heard them say waive the basket because he called timeout. I was like thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll take it, though.”
For Lower Columbia's Meadows, he looks at it as a sad day not just because he lost but for his seniors.
“I will be back next year but for these sophomores having to go out like this . . . it is just hard to realize that is how it ends for them like that. It just sucks how it happened.”
* * * * *
The Lady Saints lost again Monday, 63-61 to Columbia Basic Community College, to ended the NWAACC tournament with a 1-2 record in the four-day tournament,
The Saints had the opportunity to win the game when they found themselves down two points after sophomore forward Brittany Burroughs scored a lay-in with 2.7 seconds left on the clock. After the Burroughs score, Columbia Basin tried to inbound the ball but threw it out and gave the Saints a last-ditch effort to tie the game.
The Saints inbounded the ball to guard Shawnelle Campbell, who drove to the hoop but was stopped by three Basin defenders to block her free throw line jump shot to end the game.
The Saints started strong before slowly falling behind, going into the half down 38-27. Coming out of the half, the Saints looked sluggish until seven minutes left in the game and down 13 points, the Saints went on a 13-3 run to get back into the game before ultimately falling to the Hawks.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.
Comments