Tigers shake off slow start
TACOMA – The basketball game between Lewis and Clark and Puyallup started 30 minutes late.
The Tigers showed up even later.
It wasn’t until the second-half, following a horrific-shooting first 16 minutes in the State 4A girls basketball tournament in the Tacoma Dome, that LC (26-0) got away for a 46-27 victory over the Vikings (18-6).
The Tigers, who have won the last two state titles, play today against Snohomish (20-5) at 5 p.m. for a semifinal berth. Snohomish defeated Bellarmine Prep 49-27.
“I wouldn’t say it was by design,” LC’s Brittany Kennedy said of the Tigers’ poor start. “It was more likely nerves. Usually, you have someone going good who you can feed off. We couldn’t get anything going.”
Shot after shot failed to fall – outside or in – and LC scored eight first-quarter points. Puyallup was worse, failing to score until making a pair of free throws with 33 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
The score was 16-9 at intermission, but only after a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Puyallup’s Danielle Moore on a ball she lost control of and pushed toward the basket with both hands.
Coach Jim Redmon was at a loss to explain what transpired, agreeing that it might have been the ugliest half of Tigers basketball that he’d witnessed as coach.
He shuttled his entire 12-player roster in and out of the game during the first half as neither starters nor subs could get anything going.
“We were 0 for 10 on 3s,” he said. “I didn’t expect that out of them at all the way we played at regional.”
The second half was better. LC hit half its shots from the field, scored the first 15 points of the third quarter and ran off 12 more in a row into the fourth for a 43-16 lead.
Kennedy had six steals, several rebounds and scored eight second-half points to lead the team with 10.
Three other Tigers scored six points apiece.
Ten players scored during the Tigers’ 10th straight state tourney victory.
“(Today’s) game is huge,” said Redmon of the game with Snohomish, a team that has billeted the Tigers when they travel there for a tournament. “We know each other very well.
“We’re not going to get the second opportunities that we got (against Puyallup). They are very good, their guards are solid, they are fundamental and balanced.”
Snohomish was led by Katie Benson, who scored 24 points.