Big Bend's balanced scoring pushes team into semis

MOUNT VERNON - Big Bend women's basketball had five players score over 10 points in its opening round game of the Skagit Holiday Tournament against Northwest Indian College.

Paced by Aubrie Vale's 18 points and 15 rebounds, the Vikings (5-5) were able to build a 21-point halftime lead and finish with a 84-68 win over NWIC

It was a strong show of improvement for Big Bend as Northwest Indian had previously beaten two teams that the Vikings lost to, Olympic and Everett.

"We feel pretty good because we had a 16-point win against them so we feel pretty good about that," head coach Preston Wilks said.

Big Bend played strong perimeter defense and limited the shooters of NWIC to just three made 3-pointers. NWIC shot 13.6 percent from deep and 36.7 percent from the field for the game.

Wilks said a focal point for his defensive game plan was to hound NWIC's shooters early, interrupting their rhythm.

"The one thing that we did is we did get out on shooters," he said. "We had a ton of contested shots, which was great. We felt like we wanted to play man to start the game because we wanted to make sure we were out on their shooters to contest all their shots at first and we did that."

However, if Viking defenders were beat more often than not Northwest Indian headed to the free throw line.

NWIC almost doubled Big Bend's 17 free throw attempts with 30 free throw attempts of its own.

"To move from the level of a good team to the level of a great team you have to be really smart and fouling somebody once they beat you to the hole time and time again, that's not a characteristic or a quality of a great team," Wilks said.

Vale had an outstanding game for the Vikings with a team-high 18 points and 15 rebounds. She also had 5 assists and 2 steals.

Almost half of Vale's rebounds were of the offensive variety, which helped contribute to Big Bend's 19 second chance points.

"She came up with big offensive rebound after big offensive rebound," Wilks said. "She probably had about three putbacks out of those seven offensive rebounds."

Fellow starters Julie Bonner, Riley Jemmett and Mackenzie Windley combined for 37 points.

Chelsee Baker scored 13 points off the bench and was 3 of 3 from deep.

"She had a good offensive punch for us coming off the bench," Wilks said. "Just kind of provided a spark."

Big Bend will meet Skagit Valley today in the semifinals, a game that should be highly contested as the Vikings handed the Cardinals a 40-point loss on their home court a season ago.