Moses Lake Christian boys win overtime thriller
MLCA Lions Basketball
EPHRATA - Coach Duke Wood knew his team would be in for a dog fight in a first round match up with Waterville at the district tournament Tuesday evening.
But squeaking out a 1-point win in overtime was a bit closer of a contest than he envisioned.
Nonetheless, the 49-48 victory over the Shockers puts Moses Lake Christian Academy (MLCA) in the championship round against Soap Lake.
"Wow, what a game, "Wood said. "We came out fairly well at the start, and held an early lead and kept it at halftime, but had trouble with the Waterville press in the second half."
The Lions jumped out to a 12-9 lead at the end of the first eight minutes of action.
The Shockers fought back to trail 24-21 at the break. Waterville put 12 points on the board to the Lions 7 to take the lead, 33-31 heading into the fourth quarter. MLCA refusing to lie down, battled tooth and nail to tie the score 43-43 in the final eight minutes of play, and send the game to overtime.
Lowell Kirkwood scored all 6 points in the extra period to seal the win for the Lions
"Quade Godfrey fouled out with four minutes left in the game leaving us with one senior, a first year junior, two sophomores, and a freshman on the floor and down 6 points," Wood said. "I've got to give these kids the credit as they went out and finished the job. It was not by any means a pretty game, but the idea is to have one point more at the end and that was what we had."
Kirkwood finished with 25 points leading MLCA to the win. Godfrey added 9, and Alec Naccarato and Kenton Cleveringa finished with 6 points each.
The win over Waterville puts the Lions in the championship game against the Soap Lake Eagles Thursday at 8:30 p.m. at Ephrata High School.
The winner is the No. 1 seed, and the loser the No. 2 for the regional tournament to be played Feb. 23 at Eastmont High School in Wenatchee.
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