Northeast Nodaway's girls got off to a slow start Wednesday night before warming up and beating West Nodaway 44-34 in the semifinal round of the NWMO Tournament. The win put them into the championship match with Nodaway-Holt, which beat CFX by one point on free throws from Megan Rosenbaum with 1.6 seconds left. "We got off to a sluggish start, but the girls did a good job of being tough," said Coach Eric Fairchild. He said that the focus of his team would be boxing out on defense and being sharper running the plays as they prepared for the championship match. "We got Kristin Sherry inside where we needed her and she came through with us with 15 points," he said. "That makes her the fourth player to lead us in scoring for us this year."
West Nodaway presented Northeast with matchup problems similar to Stanberry; the Rockets came into the game returning everybody back from last year and had a pair of six-footers in Kassie Jones and Kristina Calfee. In addition, they returned guards Tessa Lightner and Claire Young. They played man to man and showed themselves to be one of the best help defensive teams around, constantly closing the driving lanes for Northeast and forcing them to shoot from outside.
As Northeast's shots were futilely clanking off the rim and they were struggling to get into their offense, West Nodaway jumped out to an 8-2 lead as Lightner scored off a pair of drives, Young slipped in for a backdoor layup, and Kassie Jones scored from the high post before Blair Schmitz scored off a drive and Emily Bryant put a nice fake and drive and put in a baseline shot at the buzzer. The rebounding was nonexistant for Northeast, which meant that they were having trouble getting into their running game as well.
But unlike the boys, Northeast's girls found a way to win despite struggling offensively and struggling on the boards; they were able to get on the line enough; they enjoyed the strong play of Kristin Sherry, and Blair Schmitz (14 points) was able to score despite battling first half foul trouble. Defensively, they avoided the kind of breakdowns that hurt the boys.
With the outside shots not falling in the first quarter, Northeast needed to attack the basket more and they finally isolated Blair in the post and Kristin Sherry found her open inside to tie it up at 8. Sherry ran over Lightner and hit a pair of free throws and then Rachel Runde got behind the defense and Blair Schmitz threw her a long outlet to make it 12-8. Kassie Jones hit a free throw, but then Sherry burned Lightner to the rim as Lightner had three fouls and scored to make it 14-9. With Schmitz on the bench with two fouls, West Nodaway cut it to 14-13 as Claire Young hit from the high post and Kassie Jones scored in transition, but Michelle Schulte got an offensive board and converted it into free throws and then Kristin Sherry hit two more to make it 18-13 at the break.
Kassie Jones banked home a shot on the right wing, but Rachel Runde got the ball into Blair to open the scoring in the third. Blair Schmitz picked up her third foul, but Kristin Sherry lobbed it into Kristan Judd for a layup and Sherry scored a free throw off a Rachel Runde steal to make it 23-15 with 4:46 left. With Blair out, West Nodaway began working the offensive glass at will as Claire Young slipped in and converted an offensive board and hit one free throw and Jones cleaned up on the second for a 3-point play; that brought Schmitz back in with the score 23-18. Schmitz was smart and did not pick up her fourth foul as she scored off a drive and then threw a long outlet to Kristin Sherry; Taylor Dougan hit a long 3-pointer at the buzzer from the left baseline to make it 30-18 and finally give Northeast some breathing room.
A free throw followed by a 3-point play became a four-point possession for West Nodaway and brought the lead down to 32-24. But Northeast was finally starting to attack the basket like Coach Fairchild wanted them to and Kristin Sherry scored six straight points as Blair Schmitz found her all alone underneath the basket off a backdoor cut, Blair threw a high-low pass to her, and then she scored off a Taylor Dougan steal as Blair threw it to her for the layup to make it 38-26. Sherry, who has been primarily a shooter in the past, has found multiple ways to beat other teams; she beat Stanberry by attacking the basket and she beat West Nodaway off the cut Wednesday night. Rachel Runde threw it to Blair inside and then Michelle Schulte scored off a steal and drive to give Northeast its biggest lead of the night at 42-28.
No comments:
Post a Comment