Warden's defense takes step back in Entiat loss

WARDEN - Defense is known to win championships.

It is also just as important to win even the simplest of regular season games.

Last night, the Warden Lady Cougars saw what had been a consistently feisty defense revert to pre-season mode.

Playing host to Central Washington South 2B top dogs, Entiat, the Lady Cougars appeared to have left their improved defensive skills back at home as they fell 64-38 in the league contest.

"Entiat has two girls that can shoot outside and they penetrate and dish really well." Warden head coach Todd Kisler said. "They played well and we just couldn't get going. This was our worst defensive game of the year since the opener."

Entiat got off to a relative decent start offensively, but Warden's offense struggled out of the gate and trailed 13-5 after the first quarter.

Then the Warden defense began to struggle.

Entiat would outscore Warden 22-8 in the second quarter and their lead would blow up to 35-13 behind a barrage of three-point shots.

In the third quarter Kisler made some changes for the Lady Cougars (4-8, 1-4) but their guests continued to attack the rim with vigilance.

"We switched out of a zone because we were giving up those threes and we did well for two minutes but then we have a player take a play off and they would score," Kisler said. "We could never get five players out there to gel. We just could never find that combination."

Warden trailed 52-22 at the end of the quarter and the game was never in doubt from that point on.

Iris Rodriguez led Warden with 11 points and eight rebounds, Chelsea Brown added nine points, and Hannah Bisnett scored eight points.

"They put on a full court press and hit some big time shots," Kisler said. "We also missed a ton of shots in the paint and we would have been a lot closer coming out of the first quarter. We don't take it up strong enough and sometimes we fade away because the defender is right there. We are not shooting with confidence."