ACH girls fall to Colton
ACH's Brenna Oliver scrambles for a loose ball as Colton's Georgia Meyer tries to control the ball on the floor during the 1B state tournament Thursday at the Spokane Arena.
SPOKANE — The Colton girls basketball team is not 102-1 with seven straight 1B state championships for no reason. The Wildcats have another gear the rest of the teams don’t have and when they kick it into high gear no one can stay with them.
Almira/Coulee-Hartline cut the deficit to nine a couple of times in the second half and had it to five once. But the high-octane Wildcats (23-1) threw it into overdrive to run away 63-46 in Thursday night’s quarterfinal game at the Spokane Arena.
Brenna Oliver was near perfect in her first state tournament experience. The 5-foot-8 Warrior senior was 4 of 4 from 2-point range, 4-4 from beyond the arch and 6 of 6 from the free-throw line for 18 points. Gabi Isaak battled the Colton powerhouse all night long, The 5-10 freshman had nine points and seven rebounds.
“I had a good game plan, but we let a couple of their girls get away from us,” ACH coach Mike Correia said. “I appreciate the girls not giving up. All you can do is put it out there and play hard and that’s the way it goes.”
Zoe Moser was 10 of 27 from the field for the Wildcats and finished with a game-high 23 points. Meghan Devorak had two 3-pointers en route to 12 points and seven rebounds.
“That’s a good team with only three loses this year. We knew Mike Correia would have a good game plan for us,” said Colton coach Clark Vining. “We weren’t shooting well in the beginning, but we played through the adversity. They made a good run and got it to single digits a couple of times.”
Colton struggled with the shot early, but the Wildcats put a smothering press on and the Warriors struggled with the press break. In fact, Colton scored 10 first-half points on the turnovers and eventually found the offensive gear to pull away. ACH committed 18 turnovers on the night.
“We knew they were going to press and it got tiring because they could rotate girls in and out more than we could,” Oliver said. “We don’t have the depth they do. But I was proud of the way we kept playing. We played hard and I have no regrets.”
The numbers weren’t as off as the score might indicate. ACH was 14 of 15 from the free-throw line. They were only out rebounded by four, Colton had the edge 26-22. Colton shot 42 percent from the field, while the Warriors were 45 percent in the second half, playing scrappy trying to claw their way back in.
“We all went out there with the idea that we had nothing to lose and they had everything to lose,” Berlyn Hunt said. “They missed some easy shots early. We knew they were going to get hot eventually, so we tried to capitalize right away.
ACH used a 19-point third quarter to close it to 46-36 with a quarter to go, but the Wildcats found the 3-point range in the final eight minutes for a 22-10 run in the final period.