Lions lose to Wildcats

AST WENATCHEE - Moses Lake Christian Academy (MLCA) girls basketball was dealt a gut-wrenching 36-35 defeat by Wilbur-Creston (WC) Friday night at the regional tournament at Eastmont High School. The loss eliminated the Lady Lions from postseason play and put an end to a very successful season.

"The girls left everything they had on the floor," coach Bryce McPartland said. "We just didn't get it done against a very good Wilbur-Creston team."

The game was close throughout as the teams battled it out for the right to advance to the 1B state tournament in Spokane this weekend.

The Lady Wildcats jumped up top 11-8 at the end of the first quarter. The Lions bounced back to outscore WC 7-4 in the second eight minutes of action to send the game into the locker room all knotted up, 15-15.

The Wildcats put 11 points on the board to MLCA's 9 to take a 26-24 lead at the end of the third quarter. The Lions, refusing to lie down, scored 11 points to WC's 10 in the final eight minutes of action, but unfortunately came up 2 points shy of a win.

"We opened up the game too slowly and were down 8-0 about 90 seconds in. When you look at the final score, it was a hard fought game, but we really made it an uphill battle the way we began," McPartland said. "This game was extremely physical. It was scrappy on both ends. Both teams played hard and either team could've won ... it's too bad that it wasn't us."

Madison Yamane turned in a strong performance in her last game as a Lady Lion, scoring 15 points to lead the MLCA attack. Dani Sandberg added 13, and Anna Yarbro finished with 5 points and 11 rebounds in the loss.

"This loss really hurts from a variety of perspectives, and will probably linger, given some of the circumstances under which it occurred. But some day, I think the girls will be able to look back, and understand that they had an extremely successful season," McPartland said. "We're going to miss Madison very much. Before she came to MLCA, the girls had never advanced beyond districts. In the five years she played, she won 83 games and her teams made the final 16 four times. She's been the only constant in the team's rise from also-ran to league favorite. Her teams averaged 19.7 wins the last three years against only 4.3 losses."

Despite the abrupt ending, the Lady Lions had a tremendous season finishing with a 20-4 record. Three of the losses were by a combined total of 6 points.

"Very few teams win 20 games in a single year and go undefeated in league play and get to play through to the penultimate week of the season," McPartland said. "This is such an incredible group of girls. We are allvery proud of them."