Mead girls off to state
KENNEWICK – Jazmine Redmon began her career as a freshman going to state with the Mead Panthers.
She’ll cap her stellar career with a return as Mead handled Walla Walla 52-35 in the 4A regional semifinals Friday at the Toyota Center.
Mead (20-5) takes on Chiawana (23-2) for the regional championship and seeding to state this afternoon at 3. Chiawana held off Lewis and Clark 59-52 in the other semifinal.
LC (15-9) meets Central Valley (18-6) in a loser-out game to decide a state berth at 11 a.m. CV cruised to a 69-47 win over Richland in a loser-out game.
Mead 52, Walla Walla 35: Redmon and her freshman sister, Jade, combined for 27 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and four steals as the Panthers led the whole way.
The Panthers zipped to a 12-2 lead. A short burst by the Blue Devils allowed them to pull within 18-13 midway in the second quarter. But another spurt by Mead – it had a handful of surges – gave the Panthers a 27-13 lead with 2:43 to go before halftime.
WW cut into the margin to go into halftime trailing 27-21.
The Panthers appeared to be on their heels when Jazmine picked up her fourth foul at 4:29 of the third quarter.
But her teammates stepped up and extended the lead to 41-25 with a minute to go in the quarter.
“We’re used to having her on the floor, but I’m real proud of the girls who came in and maintained and even helped spread it open,” Mead coach Regan Drew said. “We had some big runs and got out in transition and spread the floor. We knew our athleticism could hurt them, so we tried to spread the floor and let people attack.”
The Blue Devils trimmed the lead under double digits on the first shot of the fourth quarter, but another Mead surge (11-0) put the game out of reach at 52-32 with 3:16 remaining.
Jazmine Redmon’s 17 points were matched by Taylor Ingebritsen.
“We’ve been close, but we hadn’t turned that corner yet,” Drew said of a return trip to state. “We wanted it pretty bad for our seniors.
“It was a goal we set up at the beginning of the year and we knew we had a lot of work cut out for us.”
Redmon knew her team had state potential.
“We never finished the past two years,” she said. “We’re going to have fun at state. The key for us today was we ran as a team and we played defense as a team. That’s what we needed to do.”
Drew said her team’s growth and goals have been a process this season.
“They wanted to play for the (Greater Spokane League) championship and we were in the mix,” she said. “We wanted to play for a district title and we got it, and we wanted to play for a regional title and then a state title. They wanted to be in a position to compete for all of them and so far they’re in that position.”
Chiawana 59, Lewis and Clark 52: The Riverhawks made seven of their first eight shots for a 14-7 lead late in the first quarter, and that margin essentially held up. The Tigers never recovered from their slow start – try as they might on several occasions.
“I thought the first quarter was horrible and we started to see some life in the middle of the second,” LC coach Jim Redmon said. “Then we continued that in the third and the fourth. We gave them that early seven-point lead and we fought the whole game.”
LC pulled within 31-26 early in the third quarter before Chiawana pushed the lead back to double digits. Then in the fourth, LC trimmed the lead to 56-52 with 49 seconds remaining. But the Riverhawks made 3 of 4 free throws in the final 40 seconds to hold off the Tigers.
In a foul-infested game, Chiawana made 24 of 33 free throws to LC’s 16 of 28.
“I thought that they got a ton more from the foul line and some of that was our aggressive play,” Redmon said. “To their credit they hit their foul shots.”
Mary Blevins led LC with 15 points.
Central Valley 69, Richland 47: The Bears rebounded from their first-round loss in fine fashion, outscoring the Bombers in each quarter.
Whitney Black and Brooke Gallaway led CV with 21 and 17 points, respectively.