Rebounding puts West Valley on top
Tyler Hobbs knows what the key is for the ninth-ranked West Valley Eagles boys basketball team.
“We play our best when we are rebounding at our best,” the 6-foot-4 senior said Thursday night.
It was the Eagles’ rebounding that powered them to a 58-54 3A District 8 title game win over North Central at Mt. Spokane High, West Valley’s first win over the Indians this year after two defeats.
“We attacked the glass hard from the start, because the group we have out there is so athletic,” WV coach Jamie Nilles said. “We did a great job early, especially on the offensive glass, but I don’t know if we did a real good job defensively down the stretch.”
The Eagles, 17-4 and slated to host the Mid-Valley’s No. 2 seed Tuesday in a winner-to-state game, had nine offensive rebounds at the half, and led 27-23 behind Hobbs’ nine points. Then 6-2 Greg Bradley, who finished with four 3-pointers and a team-high 16 points, scored five straight to start the second half, the first two coming on a lob dunk.
“We were really close to being blown out there,” NC coach Jay Webber said. “But our kids were resilient and battled back. It was a lot like the first game out there, where we hung around and hung around and won it at the end.”
Behind Damal Neil’s game-high 19 points, the Indians (18-4 and slated to play tonight’s Cheney vs. East Valley winner on Saturday for regional seeding) hung around this time as well and had shot at the end.
West Valley helped by missing three key foul shots. The front-end misses – coming in a 47-second stretch and WV up 54-49 – didn’t hurt, though, because NC didn’t convert. Then, trailing 57-54 with 20 seconds left, the Indians didn’t get a 3-point attempt, missing an inside hoop with 6 seconds remaining.
The Eagles’ 39-35 rebound edge included 13 by Maurice Swan and 15 combined from Hobbs and E.J. Richardson.
Girls
Clarkston 52, East Valley 48: The Bantams (12-9) rode the 27 points and 16 rebounds of 5-11 Misty Atkinson to a home court game in next week’s East Regional against the Mid-Valley League’s No. 2 seed.
“It’s all we talked about all week, was getting that home court,” said Clarkston coach Len Kelly. “I think that’s why we came out so tense, we wanted to have that winner-to-state game at home.”
Atkinson, who averaged 18 points a game during the GSL season, exceeded that total late in the third quarter. But it was her offensive rebounding and ensuing layups early in the final quarter that allowed the Bantams to stay close when EV (8-13) took a five-point lead.
The Bantams took the lead for good with 3:18 left on Alicia Jelinek’s coast-to-coast layup, then iced it on Patsy Dodgen-Auer’s press-break layup with 27 seconds remaining.
The Knights will play the winner of tonight’s Cheney vs. North Central loser-out game on Saturday, with the winner the GSL’s 2 seed, the loser No. 3.