State 2A girls: East Valley can’t hold on to 15-point third-quarter lead

YAKIMA – Even after his team played a near-perfect first quarter, opening up a 13-point lead along the way, East Valley girls coach Rob Collins knew that sooner or later his team would have to deal with Wapato’s relentless pressure defense.

Surviving that pressure, Collins knew, would determine whether his team would advance in the State 2A girls tournament at the SunDome.

Unfortunately for Collins and the Knights, the Wolves’ pesky clutch-and-grab defense enabled Wapato to rally from a 15-point third-period deficit and advance to the quarterfinals with a 57-53 opening-round win.

The Wapato dual of Janealle Sutterlict and Tarryn Hart had a huge impact on the game. They combined for 37 points and Sutterlict had four steals.

“They have those two girls who are excellent ballplayers and they shoot the ball really well,” Collins said “We tried to keep them from getting too active. It wasn’t a high scoring game. We were trying to keep those two from getting the ball. We did our job but we made some mistakes in that last quarter.”

The loss ends East Valley’s season at 17-7. It also snaps a string of three consecutive trophies for the Knights.

In the opening period East Valley scored from the paint, hit an offensive rebound putback, hit a trio of 3-pointers and added a free throw just for kicks. To be honest, it wasn’t perfect. A turnover after a defensive rebound allowed the Wolves a late basket to cut their deficit to four points temporarily.

East Valley extended that lead to 10 points at halftime and to 15 points at the midway point of the third period but Wapato then began to apply pressure in earnest.

Trailing by 10 points to start the final period, the Wolves outscored the Knights 14-3 in 4 minutes to take the lead for the first time, 50-49. After Sydney Moore hit two free throws to answer for EV, the Wolves shut East Valley out for 3:40 and cobbled together a four-point lead, 55-51.

Brie Holecek hit a driving jumper to pull East Valley within two with 18.5 seconds left but Amanda Gonzalez hit two free throws to clinch it for Wapato.

Collins admitted that the larger court and fast pace wore his team down as the game progressed.

“We did a good job for most of the game, but we made some mistakes and we let them back in the game,” Collins said. “They played hard, my kids played hard….it was a great game.”