Wahluke girls basketball wins 2, loses 1 last week
Ted Escobar/The Sun Tribune - Wahluke’s Jackie Hidalgo drives hard to outrun the other girls on the floor to the basket during the Wahluke-Royal girls basketball game.
MATTAWA — The Wahluke girls had a successful week last week in high school basketball, winning two games while losing one.
The victories came against College Place, 40-37 and 41-37. In between, the Warriors fell, 49-46, to archrival Royal.
The Saturday win was a case of overcoming the disappointment of Friday night. The big individual effort came from Kaylynn Bailey, who struggled with shooting under the basket on Friday.
Bailey scored 13 points and took down 14 rebounds.
“Jackie Hidalgo was clutch, as always, in the fourth quarter, hitting two driving baskets in the lane and adding five free throws in the final minutes,” coach Brock Anderson said. “She and Janeth Ramirez also did a great job defensively against College Place’s dynamic guard duo.”
The loss to Royal was the result of a comeback by Royal late in the game. Wahluke had several open shots, and they just wouldn’t go down. The Warriors had the lead most of the game, with a late lead of 44-38.
Down the final stretch, Wahluke missed several times, and Royal turned some of those misfires into scores.
“We made too many mental and physical mistakes in the half court — 26 turnovers — and they made two crucial three-point plays in the final couple minutes that evaporated our seven-point lead,” Anderson said. “Just extremely disappointing, not so much because it was Royal, but because it did real damage to any chance of post-season for us.”
Wahluke will start this week with a 4-7 SCAC East record in fifth place. Kiona-Benton, in fourth place, is 6-6.
Wahluke plays 3-8 Warden twice and Kiona-Benton. Ki-Be has two games remaining, with Connell and Wahluke.
“We’ll see what transpires,” Anderson said. “We have two huge games against Warden.”