Break through in Lady Lions' district win
WENATCHEE — Two regular season games with Wilson Creek ended in loses for the Moses Lake Christian Academy Lady Lions during the current campaign.
However a post-season tournament allows for a clean slate, a fresh start, and an increase in nerves, for each game carries so much more weight than anything seen only days if not weeks earlier.
With a new canvas to work off of the Lady Lions battled the Lady Devils for a third time this year, but now in the opener of the 1B North Central Washington League district playoffs on Monday night at Wenatchee High School.
With both teams essentially starting a new season the Lady Lions took advantage of their ability to get up and down the floor and pulled out a tough 45-37 win over Wilson Creek.
Next, the Academy (14-7) take on Pateros (18-5) on Thursday at 7 p.m. for the district title and an automatic berth to the Class 1B State Tournament in Yakima next week.
“This is huge since Wilson Creek pulled out the first two games in which we led going into the fourth quarter,” Lady Lions coach Bryce McPartland said. “It was huge in terms of our growth due to our youth.”
The six-player Lions’ squad with no seniors, two freshmen, and an eighth-grader, found a way to pull out the win after leading 29-25 going into the fourth quarter and trailing 10-6 after the first quarter.
“Our teams are pretty evenly matched so it’s hard to beat a team like that three or four times in a row so we knew we had our work cut out us for it,” Wilson Creek coach Dennis Treat said. “They were able to push the tempo especially in the second quarter and that worked against us.”
McPartland acknowledged his squad felt they needed to dial up the speed to give themselves a shot against the Lady Devils (11-7).
“They were using their size and strength to their advantage and packing it in and slowing it down,” McPartland said of Wilson Creek’s tactics. “It was difficult to get anything going against it. We tried to speed it up and open the floor up more.”
The catalyst for the Lady Lions was junior Kristina Firouzi who attacked the Lady Devils to the tune of 16 points.
“I think it helps with her being our most veteran player,” McPartland said. “We saw how Wilson Creek was going to play us and figured out we could push the ball up the floor. Kristina did a great job getting us some easy scores.”
Freshman Madison Yamane added 14 points and classmate Rachel Verhage scored seven points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
“We finally tried to force tempo a little bit rather than play the other team’s game,” McPartland said. “Our girls had worked hard all year conditioning to be able to push the tempo a little bit and that was critical.”
Wilson Creek will play Mansfield (13-7) in a loser out consolation semifinal on Thursday at 4 p.m. to determine who advances to play the loser of the district final and a shot for the second and only other state berth out of the district.
“Our attitude is that we are still two wins away until someone else puts us out,” Treat said. “We split with Mansfield during the season so we’ll have to bring our hustle with us and do the best we can.”
Holly Wilson led Wilson Creek with 14 points and Kali Winfrey added 10 points.