In brief: Tigers show off stripes

Arguably the Greater Spokane League’s best 4A and 3A girls basketball teams faced off Tuesday, and the bigger school shook off the scrappy visitors.

Lewis and Clark showed several glimpses why it is considered near the top of the 4A state heap as the Tigers shrugged off the visiting Shadle Park Highlanders 77-62 in an entertaining game.

Tigers junior wing Nakia Arquette often is asked by LC coaches if her wrist is broken after games when she doesn’t take many shots. Tuesday, they needed to ice down her hands.

Arquette made 10 of 13 shots from the field, including 3 of 4 3-pointers, as she scored a career-high 26 points to go with 10 rebounds.

Sure enough, an assistant coach pointed out to Arquette that her shooting wrist obviously wasn’t broken.

“Nakia was huge,” LC coach Jim Redmon said. “Every time she touched the ball there were positive things from it.”

LC (3-0 overall, 3-0 league) led by as many as 16 points in the first half and got it back to 16 late in the third quarter. But Shadle (3-2, 2-1) fought back, pulling within 50-45 when Aleisha Hathaway and Kendra Knutsen hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter.

“You go back to the Mead game, we didn’t stop their run and bring it back up,” Redmon said. “Tonight we did. We’re not there yet. We don’t feel we’re even close to there, but we are building toward it.”

Arquette was quick to deflect credit to her team.

“It was due to my team passing the ball and finding the open player,” Arquette said. “There’s a positive attitude all around. This is definitely a huge building stone for our team. We’ve just got to keep going. We can’t go backward.”

Arquette had a lot of support. Junior guard Devyn Galland had 18 points and senior wing Hayley Hendricksen had 15 points and 15 rebounds.

“At Lewis and Clark we’ve always been about balance,” Redmon said. “We don’t look at superstars, we look at that balance piece.”

Junior Rekiyah Carney came off the bench to lead the Highlanders. She finished with 14 points. Hathaway had 13 and Chelsea Chandler and Kaycee Hert had 12 apiece.

“We’re better than we showed,” Shadle coach Chad Dezellem said. “Maybe we wanted it too much and we forgot the little things like blocking out and rebounding. We’re a good blocking-out team and we didn’t block out a lick in the first half. But I’m proud of how we fought back.”

Gonzaga Prep 51, Mead 32: Tia Presley scored 12 of her game-high 26 points in the second quarter as the Bullpups (3-0, 3-0) were too much for the visiting Panthers (1-3, 0-3).

Presley also had nine rebounds and three steals. Taylor Ingebritsen led Mead with 16 points.

North Central 37, University 35: Riley Holsinger scored eight of her 17 points in the last 2 1/2 minutes to lead the Indians (3-1, 3-0) past the visiting Titans (2-3, 1-2).

Holsinger also had 12 rebounds. Teammate Tara Weerdhizen had 15 rebounds. Cassie Shillam had 12 points for U-Hi.

Mt. Spokane 42, Rogers 24: The visiting Wildcats (3-1, 2-1) opened a 26-11 lead by halftime over the Pirates (0-3, 0-3).

The Pirates played their best game thus far. Danielle Beltrane led Mt. Spokane with 10 points. Rogers’ Jasmin Andrews had a game-high 12 rebounds.

Central Valley 78, Ferris 68: The visiting Bears (1-3, 1-2) got their first win.

Sydney Emory led CV with 24 points, hitting six 3-pointers, and teammate Brooke Gallaway had 22 points. Katara Belton-Sharp led Ferris (0-3, 0-3) with 27.