Lady Cougars take championship!

SPOKANE — The Warden High School Lady Cougars played all four days of the 1B state tournament at the Spokane Arena and ended their state run by bringing home the state title.

“The girls, they’re just so tough. They just keep battling and every time they reach a goal, we just set the bar higher and they respond,” said lady Cougars head coach Josh Madsen.

After losing their first game of the season in the regional matchup against No. 7 Liberty (Spangle) 60-62 on Feb. 25, Warden was seeded to play in the first day of the state tournament.

Going into the tournament, the girls were ranked No. 2 and would have to win three games in three days for a shot at the gold ball.

The Warden Lady Cougars beat No. 10 Wahkiakum 55-40 on day one of the tournament, putting them into day two against La Conner.

Against La Conner, the game kicked off with La Conner gaining possession of the ball from the tip off. However, Warden’s Lauryn Madsen made the first basket of the game with 7 minutes left in the quarter. By halfway through the quarter, Warden was able to get a quick lead of 10-3. The quarter came to a close with the Lady Cougars ahead by seven, 17-10.

Quarter two, La Conner managed to close their lead, just trailing at 21 to Warden’s 22 at the end of the quarter.

Going into the second half of the game, Warden continued to hold La Conner back and widened the gap from one point ahead to four. The end of quarter three saw Warden at 36 to La Conner’s 32.

Fourth quarter, the Lady Cougars pushed on. A four-point gap did not seem to be enough for Warden and they used the fourth quarter to not only win the game but widen their lead to 13 points by the end. Warden won the game 61-48.

Coach Madsen was really happy with this win for the fact that La Conner was ranked the No. 1 team going into the tournament, with Warden being ranked just behind them at No. 2.

If rankings could determine how tough a team would be, Warden would have just won their toughest game of the tournament.

“The girls just dug in and it was a huge team win. And we had a good game plan and more importantly, the girls executed it,” Madsen said after the game against La Conner, but added, “We got more work to do.''

The Lady Cougars kept working hard, just as their coach had asked them to.

Their third game of the tournament was against No. 4 Okanogan where they took the victory, 68-48.

Okanogan got the ball from tip-off but Warden quickly recovered it. Warden senior Rylee McKay made the first point at 7:06 left in the first quarter. Okanogan was able to take a small lead at 5:40 left with a three-pointer, 5-2. Warden wasn’t able to take the lead until there were only 20 seconds left in the first quarter. They made quick work in the 20 seconds to go from a lead of 18-15 to 21-15, due to a three-point buzzer-beater by sophomore Lauryn Madsen.

Little by little the Lady Cougars ground forward and expanded their lead over the next three quarters to 20 points.

Coach Madsen got emotional after the game, talking about how special and meaningful it was for his team to be moving on to the championship and for his two daughters to be on the team. If they won the title, it would be Madsen’s first championship as head coach.

After three long days at the Spokane Arena, the Lady Cougars were finally in the championship game. Warden would battle No. 3 Colfax for the glory of being named the WIAA 2B girls state champions.

When the game started, Colfax got possession from the jump and was able to score right away. Warden did not get on the board until 6:48 left in the quarter by a three-pointer by junior Quinn Erdmann to tie the two teams at three-all. The two teams battled back and forth for the lead over the next three minutes but were tied at 11 points each with three minutes left on the clock. Colfax was able to gain the lead at the very end of the quarter, 16-14.

Second quarter, Warden surged ahead and had their highest-scoring quarter of the game with 24 points while holding Colfax to only nine. Like the Lady Cougars have seemed to do all season, they found their groove, sunk baskets and put pressure on their opponents which resulted in their lead of 38-25 at the half.

Third quarter, Warden stepped back and focused on keeping the lead and added another 17 points to the board.

As their coach said all season, the girls had unfinished business and they clearly intended to finish it and finish it strong. They never held back on Colfax, shooting, driving and pressing.

Fourth quarter, the Lady Cougars were ahead 55-38. As they pushed on they kept their lead as Colfax got more desperate to catch up. With a couple of minutes left in the game, coach Madsen substituted in all his reserves that had gotten little or no playing time yet in the game. As the players subbed out, many returning to the bench became emotional as the final seconds of their last game of the season ticked away.

Warden won 70-55 in the championship game over Colfax. Warden brings home the championship trophy with a nearly-perfect season record of 26-1.

The Warden High School Lady Cougars finished the business they had at the state tournament this weekend with a state championship trophy and an overall season record of 26-1. They also hold their league and district titles this year.

“We’ve been on a mission this whole season and the girls followed through with what we said we wanted to do,’” said Madsen. “We never shied away from it, we never backed down, we said we wanted a state title; we wanted a gold ball; we went and got it.”

Lady Cougar stats:

• Their highest game average was 86.7% for made free throws in the game against Colfax
• Sophomore Lauryn Madsen made 26 points against Okanogan, she also had 25 points in the game against La Conner.
• Senior Kiana Rios had 15 rebounds in the game against Colfax
• The largest lead Warden held was 25 points in the fourth quarter against Okanogan
• They scored a combined total of 254 points over the four games

Box scores:

Warden - 6 13 19 17 - 55

Wahkiakum - 12 8 6 14 - 40

Warden - 17 5 13 25 - 61

La Conner - 10 11 11 16 - 48

Warden - 21 17 18 12 - 68

Okanogan - 15 15 11 7 - 48

Warden - 14 24 17 15 - 70

Colfax - 16 9 13 17 - 55