Lions win own tournament for first time in history
MOSES LAKE — It was still only December and a nice little four-team tournament in a basketball season with still over 60 days left to go for the Moses Lake Christian Academy girls basketball team.
Who cares.
The Lions came out playing with history on its mind and made it with a 37-28 win over Tri Cities Prep in the championship of Moses Lake Christian Academy Christmas Tournament last night.
It was the first time that the Lions (3-2) had ever won its own holiday tournament.
“Let me tell you, this is what’s important for these girls in gaining confidence but this is also the first time we’ve ever won our own tournament,” Lions’ coach Bryce McPartland said. “This is a foundation of building a solid tradition with the program. I told them before the game that we’re 32 minutes away from recording the most successful year in the program’s history. Winning this tournament for us was huge.”
Moses Lake Christian Academy recorded its first ever Regional Championship game appearance in February and appeared at the 1B state tournament a week later.
This year’s edition, starting two freshman and an eighth-grader, came out strong defensively, taking a 6-2 lead after the first quarter.
But Tri Cities Prep stayed firm in their own game plan and found some kinks in the Lions’ defensive armor to chip away and cut the deficit to 12-11 at halftimes.
When the two teams came out for the second half the Lions reasserted their defensive prowess by utilizing their obvious advantage in height and length.
“Our girls are extremely long and have long wingspans,” McPartland said. “That is really important to allow them to pressure the ball and also play back off the dribble.”
Many of the young Lions are still growing into their own bodies and their athletic potential McPartland said, but they still were able to give Tri Cities Prep enough problems to keep them at bay, building their lead to 33-20 early in the fourth quarter before holding on to win.
“What really got us going was that the night before Prep saw a zone against Warden and had room to shoot,” McPartland said. “We went to man defense and with our length they didn’t have the openings they needed to shoot.”
With his team’s solid defensive performance, McPartland saw the squad’s offense begin to show signs of fluidity.
“Shutting them down defensively as well as we did that was important,” he said. “But the biggest thing was our girls slowing down in the second half and playing with poise and running the offense.”
Susan Timofeyev and Melissa Verhage each scored 11 points to lead the Lions while Rachel Verhage added 10 points.
Warden 55, Bridgeport 48
All their hustle and scrappiness finally paid off for the Warden Cougars as they beat Bridgeport 55-48 in the tournament’s consolation final last night.
Warden (1-8), which has struggled with its offense most of the season, broke out to a 22-11 lead after the first quarter.
“It felt good to finally make some easy baskets,” Warden coach Todd Kisler said. “It was nice to see the girls getting their easy shots to finally go in.”
The Cougars did slip in the second quarter, allowing Bridgeport to tie the game at 31 going into halftime.
But a 13-3 third quarter by Warden gave them a 44-34 lead, which was enough of a cushion to hold on for the game’s final eight minutes.
“At halftime I just told them to come out and step up our defense and offensively to start going to the rim,” Kisler said. “The defense just go after them ad we really stepped it up. We didn’t foul as much as we had in the first half and we could stay in our man-to-man longer.”
Emma Bisnett led Warden with 13 points and 21 rebounds while Kacey Kisler added 10 points and 16 rebounds.