Tigercats Cap Run With A Big Victory

Southeast B

The can’t-win-the-big-one label wore off LaCrosse-Washtucna Saturday.

Completing perhaps the most grueling boys basketball tournament in Class B history, senior-dominated L-W beat sophomore-laden DeSales 54-37 at Friel Court in the District 9-B championship to qualify for next week’s State B Tournament.

Casey Rouleau scored 22 points, hitting 9 of 15 field goals and 4 of 4 free throws, as the Tigercats (25-3) advanced to state for the first time as a combined team. LaCrosse, by itself, made state in 1983.

“It has been bad,” Rouleau said of L-W’s just-miss tendency in basketball and football during the 1990s. “I’ve been on this varsity team since I was a sophomore. It has been terrible.”

“For me, it was just a little monkey on my back,” said Tigercats second-year coach Andy Stinson. “For everyone else, it was years of frustration.”

A loss to Tekoa-Oakesdale at the Whitman County League Tournament forced the Tigercats to win six consecutive loser-out games at district. They did so in style, winning the six by an average of 13.3 points.

The fifth of those loser-out games was Friday against De Sales, with L-W winning 65-55.

The Stubborn Irish (17-8) held tough until late in the third quarter on Saturday. Seniors Rouleau, Troy Nealey and Clint Ledbetter did all the scoring as L-W stretched a 34-33 lead to 48-33 with 3:29 left in the game.

DeSales, a team with no seniors on its roster, never led. Six-foot-5 sophomore post Scott Zea, who dinged L-W for 26 points Friday, tied the game at 2 with 33 seconds gone, but the Tigercats then piled up 10 straight. Zea committed his second foul midway through the first quarter and was benched for 9-1/2 minutes.

DeSales focused its defensive attention on Ledbetter, who scored 23 Friday.

“I told Clint to look for the triangle-and-one,” Stinson said. “But that’s funny, because we have guys like Rouleau who can step up.”

The Tigercats played for last year’s district title against Garfield-Palouse, lost, then dropped a No. 2-to-state game to Waitsburg. The year before, Gar-Pal knocked out L-W during another game for the second state berth.

LaCrosse-Wash. 54, DeSales 37

LaCrosse-Wash. 12 14 14 14 - 54

DeSales 8 15 10 4 - 37

LACROSSE-WASHTUCNA Nealey 10, Colter 0, Schweiger 3, Ledbetter 9, Rouleau 22, Anderson 0, Henley 0, Daniel 4, Whitman 4, Wigen 2, Hammond 0, Blankenship 0.

DeSALES Lindgren 9, Levens 8, Heinzman 2, Stanley 0, Wolfram 0, Ewoniuk 0, Carroll 0, Barry 2, Zea 11, Michels 0, Baffney 2, Moromarco 3.

Girls

SJE 57, DeSales 51

All season, SJE coach Lorin Carlon begged his girls to take the ball to the basket and improve their free-throw shooting.

The two-pronged message sank in at the right time, as the defending state champion Eagles (21-5) made 17 of 18 free throws in the second half to rally past the Irish (19-5) and qualify for their fifth consecutive state tourney.

Senior Tricia Lamb, who surpassed 2,000 career points Friday during a championship-game loss to Tekoa-Oakesdale, hit 10 of 10 free throws in the second half and scored 26.

“This is the first time I’ve played this (loser-out, winner No. 2) game,” said Lamb, whose Eagles won the last three districts. “It’s a different feeling. This team has a lot of heart.”

Seniors and freshmen made the difference as SJE bounced back from a 21-10 deficit. Lamb and classmates Brooke Bafus and Cheryl Kile combined for 39 points; ninth-graders Kim Colyar, Desi Zuger and Jennifer Hedlund scored the other 18.

“All of (the freshmen) did great tonight,” Lamb said. “Especially Kim Colyar. She was an animal.”

Colyar and Zuger, showing no youthful jitters, combined to sink 10 of 12 from the line.

The Eagles took their first lead, 40-38, when Lamb’s basket beat the third-quarter buzzer. A Bafus scoop shot with 3:33 left put SJE ahead to stay.

SJE made 25 of 34 free throws, DeSales 3 of 5.

Irish junior Amber Hellberg dominated the inside with 22 points.

St. John-End. 10 13 17 17 - 57

DeSales 18 10 10 13 - 51

ST. JOHN-ENDICOTT Colyar 7, Bafus 8, Lamb 26, Loomis 0, Schmick 0, Zuger 5, Kile 5, Hedlund 6, White 0.

DeSALES Dutton 10, Graham 10, E.Hellberg 0, Long 8, A.Hellberg 22, Balakier 0, Postlewat 1.

, DataTimes