MLCA Lady Lions basketball wins one, lose one
MLCA Lions Basketball
EPHRATA - Moses Lake Christian Academy (MLCA) girls basketball dropped the second game of the district tournament to Pateros Thursday, but bounced back to beat Entiat Saturday to advance to the regional tournament in as the No. 2 seed.
Pateros 39
MLCA 37
The Lady Lions found themselves in unfamiliar territory in the game against the Nannies on Valentines Day as they fell behind early and had to play catch up for the first 18 minutes of the contest. Pateros went up top 14-7 at the end of the first quarter and led 21-13 at intermission. The Lions fought back with a 16-3 run to take the lead 29-24 heading into the fourth quarter. The Nannies turned the tide on MLCA in the final eight minutes, 15-8, to pull out 2-point win.
"Pateros came out with quite a bit of energy, and we found ourselves down by eight at halftime, and that was not a position our kids were overly familiar with," coach Bryce McPartland said. "We talked it through at halftime, and the girls actually came back pretty well. We got all eight back to tie the score two minutes into the third quarter, and went up by five heading into the fourth."
The Lions were was led by Anna Yarbro's 16 points. Taylor Yamane added 11, and Madison Yamane finished with 10.
"Dani Sandberg, who averages 11 points per game, put up a goose egg, as did Mikaela Loudon, who averages 6," McPartland said. "That was probably our major problem against Pateros."
Lorie LeDoux was high scorer for the Nannies with 11 points.
MLCA 34
Entiat 29
The Lions found themselves in another tough contest in a loser out game with the Tigers Saturday.
MLCA went up 9-2 at the end of the first eight minutes of play and took a comfortable 19-8 score into the locker room at halftime. Entiat outscored the Lions 21-15 in the second half of action, but was unable to make up the 11-point first half deficit and dropped the game by 5 points.
"A combination of our legs giving out a bit after three hard fought games this week, and Entiat catching fire made this game unnecessarily close," McPartland said. "Entiat is a good team, and they showed that they could play with us at their pace, but we kind of ran out of gas for a long period in the fourth quarter. I was proud of the girls bouncing back after suffering a disheartening loss in the district title game on Thursday."
The win over the Tigers puts the Lions in a first round regional match up with Wilbur-Creston at Eastmont High School in Wenatchee Friday night.
"Wilbur-Creston won the District 7 championship," McPartland said. "But I think we'll feel renewed life over the course of the next week and will give them everything we have."
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