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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Keana Gosney’s big second half helps carry Central Valley girls past Mead; Mead boys outlast CV

For the past decade, the Central Valley and Mead girls basketball teams have resided at the top of the Greater Spokane League, and one or both usually end up playing on Saturday at the state tournament.

Entering play Tuesday, the teams were again atop the GSL standings. Although they now play in different classifications – and with Ridgeline still undefeated with one game remaining – the matchup was essentially an elimination game for the GSL championship.

The visiting Bears got out to an early lead and kept the Panthers at arm’s length en route to a 72-60 win, setting up the de facto league title game against Ridgeline on Friday.

Keana Gosney led CV with 19 points – all in the second half – while Drea Domebo came off the bench for 13 and Brynn McGaughy added 11.

Sophomore Ellie Thornton led Mead with 21 points and Gracie Wenkheimer chipped in 12 – all on 3-pointers.

“We keep talking about consistency, consistency, and then for whatever reason we just don’t sustain it,” Central Valley coach Jason Wilson said. “We’ll have the one nice quarter, and then we’ll have a little lull, and then we’ll have another nice quarter. And it’s really frustrating. Because when we’re at our best, we can be whatever we want to be.”

“(CV) just made shots,” Mead coach Quantae Anderson said. “I think that some of them were open and some of them were contested, and they got some offensive rebounds. Overall, we made shots, too. They just made more than we did. I felt we had a couple of mistakes, some self-inflicted wounds in that first half that kept that distance a little.”

Gosney entered play averaging 9.4 points per game – fourth on the Bears.

“The score was closer than we knew it should have been – a few of my teammates were having a hard time,” Gosney said. “My goal wasn’t really to score, it was really just to create for them, which is usually my role. It just happened that I got open tonight.”

“Keana was absolutely unbelievable tonight,” Wilson said. “I mean, just her tenacity. … But she was unbelievable on both ends of the floor, just competing, competing, competing, and getting to the basket.”

The Panthers played tough defense on McGaughy, the 6-foot-3 top recruit in the state headed to University of Washington in the fall, who leads the GSL in scoring at 17.7 points.

“We made (McGaughy) work for her shots,” Anderson said. “She didn’t have a lot of open looks. She made some tough turnarounds from that length and that size of hers.”

“When Brynn gets two or three bodies on her, our coach emphasizes just to cut to the middle and make her job easier,” Gosney said.

“(Brynn) is almost too nice, I think at times – too much of a team player if that makes sense,” Wilson said. “They can’t guard her if she just kind of demanded the ball more in her spots.”

CV (19-0, 8-0) hit seven of its first eight shots and sprinted to an eight-point lead. Aspyn Henry scored eight points in the first quarter, including a pair of 3-pointers, and CV led 24-16 .

The lead reached double digits – momentarily – late in the second quarter on Olivia Patshowski’s 3-pointer, but Thornton drove for a bucket and Julie Thoet made a free throw after time expired and the Bears led 35-28 at halftime.

Gosney hit a pair of 3s in the middle of the third quarter to push CV’s lead to 12. But Mead (12-6, 6-2) kept hanging around, and Thornton’s runner at the end of the quarter made it 51-44 entering the fourth.

Gosney drove for a pair of layups early in the fourth quarter and CV’s lead grew to 11 with 5 minutes, 7 seconds left. The Bears’ defense clamped down in the latter stages and Mead never found another run.

“At halftime, we knew if we wanted to compete for a GSL championship we had to show out in the second half,” Gosney said. “And that’s exactly what our team did.”

Boys

Mead 68, Central Valley 61: Karson Maze scored eight of his 15 points in the fourth quarter and the Panthers (15-4, 7-1) outlasted the Bears (9-10, 4-4) in the late game.

Nash Dunham led Mead with 17 points, Brady Thornton scored 15 and Bryce Lynd added 12. Orland Axton led CV with 19 points and Cameron Walls added 14.

CV led by two points entering the fourth, but Dunham hit a 3-pointer early in the quarter and Maze added one with 3:45 to go to put Mead up by seven. Olson hit a 3-pointer to make it a five-point game with 25 seconds left, but Mead made 8 of 9 from the free-throw line to hold on.

“We expected that out of CV,” Mead coach Luke Jordan said. “Things are really close in the 3A (standings), so we knew they would fight for every loose ball.”