Early deficit too much for Chiefs to overcome

SPOKANE — Coming in off of three straight wins during this post season, the Moses Lake Chiefs’ girls basketball travelled east hoping to keep their momentum in a regional tournament opener Tuesday night.

But hosts and perennial powers Lewis and Clark quashed any early mojo Moses Lake might have had, by hitting four first quarter three pointers en-route to a 19-8 lead which would hold up for a 57-49 victory.

The loss propels the Chiefs (13-12) into a win-or-done scenario on Friday night when they play Southridge at the Toyota Center in Kennewick at 4 p.m. in a loser out semifinal.

Hopefully they can start that game better than they did last night.

“The first quarter we felt like our match up zone had went well at Richland (in the district 3rd/4th place game) and thought we could ride it especially since Lewis and Clark have some bigger kids,” Chiefs’ coach Matt Strophy said. “We thought we’d pack it in and let them beat us outside and it didn’t work for us.”

It sure didn’t as Lewis and Clark banged in their four long-range shots to pull away to an 11-point lead after Moses Lake’s Tiffany Morris hit two free throws to pull her team within 10-8.

Strophy then decided to go to man-to-man defense and from there the game became a chess match.

“That was our best defense,” Strophy said. “It was just a mind set that you know you can’t help off of your player or they’ll find the girl and hit the three. So we had to man up and not let up and we did a good job.”

Moses Lake cut the deficit to 30-20 at halftime but the host Tigers (15-8) showed their championship mettle by pumping the lead back up to 45-32 after the end of the third quarter.

But the Chiefs’ have a winning pedigree as well and the fourth quarter proved it.

Behind a full throttle performance of junior guard Jordan Loera, the Chiefs began to chip away and Moses Lake had the ball down 54-49 with just over a minute to go.

However a Loera jumper was just off, the Tigers gained possession and found a way to ice the game from the free throw line.

“I liked our calmness just like last weekend when we got down early and just played basketball,” Strophy said. “We kicked up the intensity especially in the fourth quarter, so now hopefully we can play like that an entire game and not get down 10 or 15 early. We just ran out of time. Give us two minutes and we get this win or at least get it into an overtime situation.”

Still the Chiefs’ defense may be working for them but Strophy admits that having three players score 42 of their 49 points and take 43 of their 51 shots is not good enough for a team to be considered a primary threat for a state title.

“Tiffany (Morris) takes nine shots, Kayla (Bernsen) takes 12, Jordan takes 22, and the rest combined took eight and that needs to be spread out a little more,” Strophy said. “We need some more kids to step up more especially against these good teams.”

Loera finished the night with 20 points, Bernsen added 13 points and Morris contributed nine points.

Now the squad, which is 2-0 in elimination games this post season, hopes to keep that streak going on Friday and Strophy believes his team has what it takes to win two games and advance to the state finals.

“Yes I believe we can do it,” Strophy said. “We just have to play the way we are capable of.”