Chiawana setback pushes Chiefs girls' learning curve

MOSES LAKE - A lesson learned was in partial evidence Saturday

night for the Moses Lake Chiefs girls basketball team.

MOSES LAKE 61, Walla Walla 36

MOSES LAKE - A lesson learned was in partial evidence Saturday night for the Moses Lake Chiefs girls basketball team.

Following a disappointing 53-37 Big 9 loss to the Chiawana Riverhawks in Pasco Friday night, the Chiefs bounced back with a 61-36 rout of visiting Walla Walla 24 hours later.

But for Moses Lake, the Walla Walla win was akin to passing a pop quiz compared to a full fledged final exam.

Against Chiawana, the Chiefs were defeated behind their inability to hold on to the ball - 26 turnovers - and having no one else besides senior guard Jordan Loera step up to provide any scoring punch.

"Chiawana just flat out outplayed us," Moses Lake head coach Matt Strophy said. "They have the height and size that is very difficult to compete with. Plus having 26 turnovers that led to 20 points compared to us turning them over for 12 points for two points and not shooting well from the free throw line didn't help us any."

What also hurt was complimenting a solid performance by Loera, who scored 23 points, with a total of only 14 from the other eight players combined that saw playing time.

"We've talked about it before and we did so after the game," Strophy said. "We need other people to step up. They did a great job defensively on Kayla (Bernsen) and when we did get other people open we turned the ball over. We need to be aggressive on a consistent basis."

Bernsen, the Chiefs' most proficient post player was held to only three points.

Moses Lake also shot only 50 percent from the foul line.

Strophy did note the play of sophomore point Courtney Kunjara who added six points for Moses Lake who were tied at 11-11 after the first quarter before the Riverhawks began to pull away.

"We've got to figure out a way to get our swagger back," Strophy said. "That night we lost to a better team. We talked about what are we going to do with the rest of the season and figure out what's going wrong and fix it."

The next night the swagger wasn't in evidence and the fix it job began as the Chiefs rolled out to an 18-6 first quarter lead, and a 33-12 advantage at halftime before cementing the sizeable win.

"It was a good step in the right direction," Strophy said. "When we have Magie Munoz get six points and Sadie Nielsen get five, Tasha Gentry with five, Kyleigh Gamez back up with 17, it shows we can score against teams not as good as us. We also took care of the ball with only 10 turnovers."

Gamez, along with Loera, who scored 17 points, paced the Chiefs, who ended a two-game Big 9 losing streak.

Bernsen finished with nine points.

"Not to rain on their parade, but we played well against an inferior team even if we didn't play down to their level," Strophy said. "We're not going to play Walla Walla to go to state. We need to play well against a Chiawana or a Richland to advance. We have to do the things we did against Walla Walla against the good teams too."