Eatonville squelches Cheney
TACOMA – There would be no miracle this time.
Coming off Saturday’s shocking upset of Pullman, the Cheney girls basketball team played like it was still in disbelief losing 38-24 to Eatonville in the first round of the State 2A girls high school basketball tournament on Wednesday at the Tacoma Dome.
The Blackhawks shot a woeful 4 for 23 in the second half, and scored just nine points – as many they had in the first quarter. Cheney finished at 21.7 percent shooting (10 for 46) for the game, and the poor shooting continued both at the free-throw line, where Cheney made just 3 of 14, and the 3-point arc, connecting on 1 for 15.
“I don’t know what it was, a lot of nervousness,” Cheney coach Hal Sautter said, scratching his head. “I don’t know how many missed layins we had. I mean (Eatonville) worked hard to shut down our outside shooters. And we had open looks on the inside, we just didn’t convert them.”
MacKenzie Lauber scored eight points to lead the senior-laden Blackhawks (15-10), who were making their first state basketball tourney appearance in eight years thanks to Ceri Palk’s last-second 3-pointer to eliminate Pullman on Saturday.
But there were no such tries on Wednesday, when the quicker Cruisers (17-6) jumped out to leads of 11-2 and 21-9 in the first half and never looked back.
Guard Dani Carlman, the Nisqually League MVP, netted 14 points and Richelle Heacock added 10 to lead Eatonville, in its ninth consecutive girls state basketball tournament.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Eatonville,” Sautter said. “They had a good defensive gameplan.”
Part of that plan was to harass Cheney’s 6-foot-3 center MacKensie Gaddy with a constant double-team and helpside defense that never allowed her any room to navigate. She finished with four points in 14 minutes of play. Cheney plays Lynden today in a loser-out game at 10:30 a.m.
Anacortes 70, Clarkston 50: The once-beaten Seahawks improved to 25-1 with a rout of the Bantams in the final game of the day.
The Seahawks broke open a 9-7 game with a 33-18 run keyed by 18 Clarkston turnovers to get their quick and effective transition game humming to end the first half. Anacortes kept the deficit around 20 points throughout the second half, managing to keep the Bantams (17-6) at bay with an aggressive defense and counterattack.
Montana-bound Misty Atkinson led all scorers with a game-high 24 points for Clarkston, which also got 13 points from freshman Kellie McCann-Smith.
The Bantams face Ellensburg today at 2 p.m. in a loser-out game.