DeSales knocks out LaCrosse-Washtucna

PULLMAN — After watching their boys team beat LaCrosse-Washtucna a day before to advance to the state tournament in Spokane, the DeSales girls knew they could do the same thing Saturday.

“We should have let them play first Friday night,” joked head coach Tim Duncan, whose team lost by 10 in the championship game against Garfield-Palouse.

While the Lady Irish couldn’t claim the District 9 B title on Friday afternoon, they did the next best thing by taking a cue from the boys and beating L-W 47-36 to take second place and a spot of their own in Spokane.

DeSales (18-7) started things out on a 7-0 run and never looked back, holding L-W in check and preventing any significant runs the entire game. The Irish never led by less than four after taking the initial seven-point edge. The Tigercats (20-7) were never completely out of reach until the final minute, but they still couldn’t piece together any kind of challenge as DeSales ground its way toward the second seed.

“The one thing I told our girls is that you don’t have to score sometimes to stop runs,” Duncan said. “You’ve got to do it at the defensive end, and that’s what I think we kept emphasizing. Everything that is going to happen tonight is going to be predicated by what you do defensively. We didn’t really allow them to get anything. They didn’t shoot very well, and that didn’t help them. But our defense was terrific.”

The Tigercats barely shot 20 percent from the floor, but they still got an outstanding effort from senior Jen Ayers-Stamper in what ended up being her last game. Ayers-Stamper scored more than half of her team’s points with 20, but even she was outshone by DeSales.

That’s because senior center Andrea Wujek had 22 points to lead all scorers. It became obvious from the opening seconds that the Irish planned to give their best offensive player the ball as often as possible and let her carry them to the state tournament on that end of the floor.

At halftime, Wujek alone had 12 points to L-W’s 13. Fourteen of her points came from the free-throw line on 16 attempts.

“I knew I had to make them. Some of my shots weren’t going in, so I had to have them,” Wujek said. “(Friday) night we played a little scared. We just really wanted to come out and play the game we knew we could play.”