Broncos turn aside Liberty
Lind-Ritzville’s Katlin Fowles wouldn’t let Liberty pull off another thrilling victory in the District 7 2B tournament at Spokane Falls Community College.
After a rocky start Saturday, Fowles and the Broncos settled in and hit perimeter shots for a 45-33 victory over the Lancers.
The Lancers (10-13) sustained what momentum was left from a 48-45 overtime win Friday against Wilbur-Creston and jumped out to an early lead while holding Lind-Ritzville in check.
But the Broncos (18-4) eventually caught their stride.
“We had a hard time against their man-to-man defense,” said Fowles, who had 16 points and shot 8 of 13 from the field. “In the second half, we broke their defense.”
Lind-Ritzville made offensive adjustments to cope with Liberty’s defense and subsequently went on a 16-3 run to end the first half.
“At first it looked like we had too much energy and we were going too fast,” Broncos head coach Randy Heidenreich said. “We talked about settling down and executing and we started to pull away.”
The Broncos initially tried to go over the top to 6-foot sophomore Devon Killian in an attempt to exploit Liberty’s lack of size, but 5-foot-9 Teara Cornmesser was able to parry many of the Broncos’ advances.
Killian finished with eight points (six in the first half) and Cornmesser tallied five for Liberty.
“We wanted to attack her (Cornmesser) a little bit and see if we could get her in foul trouble,” Heidenreich said.
Liberty coach Aaron Fletcher felt his post players did well against the bigger Broncos.
“Cornmesser did a good job,” Fletcher said. “She worked hard on Killian … all of our bigs did a good job tonight.”
The Broncos’ perimeter shooting, however, was too much for Liberty to handle once the Lancers switched to a zone defense after halftime.
Along with Fowles’ 16 points, fellow senior Laura Cain scored 10 points and eight rebounds and Cassie Cole had two points, five assists and four steals.
Junior Katy Collins led Liberty with nine points, including five with less than 3 1/2 minutes left in the game.
Lind-Ritzville advances to face Springdale at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to decide the third and fourth seeds to the regional tournament. Liberty plays Selkirk at 5 p.m. Tuesday in a loser-out game to decide the fifth seed to the regional tournament. Both games are at SFCC.
Northwest Christian 49, St. George’s 46: Hayley Hendricksen had 21 points for the Crusaders (19-3) in the championship game. St. George’s was led by Lena Leverett-Standal with 16 points. The Crusaders and Dragons (20-3) are Nos. 1 and 2 seeds for regionals.
Springdale 49, Selkirk 38: Sam Pierce had 14 points and Holly Howard added 11 points and six rebounds as the Chargers (17-6) secured a spot in the regional tournament with their win over Selkirk (11-11). Maria Villegas led Selkirk with 16 points.