This was a bitter sweet win because we beat the team that we were tied with, but at the same time we lost our point guard who is one of our team leaders and one of the greatest kids I have ever coached! Whitni England went down with a knee injury, but we have not given up hope that she will be ready to play on Friday at Oroville. There is no girl around that has worked harder than Whitni and she deserved to have a great season, which is exactly what she has had so far this season.
On the good side of things this was a huge win for the team, as we now just need to take care of business at Oroville this Friday and at Bridgeport next Thursday and we will go to districts. The girls played very well while having a rough shooting night. We finally made one of our goals of having twelve or less turnovers in a game; we had a total of exactly twelve! We also had ten assists. Soap Lake did a pretty good job limiting our steals to only twelve. They did a good job of getting ready to play us. Their game plan was obviously to make sure that Vetta Maynard did not hurt them at either end of the floor, which they did an alright job doing. They "held" Vetta to "only" twelve points and "only" one steal. Vetta did a great job of handling the ball and playing the point tonight and shutting down Soap Lake's best scorer holding her to one point. Marci Nelson has become our best all-around player this season and she proved her importance to the team tonight. Marci had 23 points and 14 rebounds to lead the team in both categories, while holding her own player to seven total points in the game. This game might have been a disaster had Marci not taken over in the first and third quarters scoring eight and eleven points in those two quarters. Whitni England had another great game dishing out five assists and getting four of her own steals at the defensive end before going down to injury. Verna LaCourse got the start in tonight's game and got four rebounds and one steal. After her steal she drove the length of the court and dang near had a pretty finish to the lay-up. Abby Bridgewater had a good game tonight getting two rebounds and one steal of her own, while playing good hard-nosed defense in the post. Veronica Vanderholm was our power inside; on both ends of the floor she dominated much taller players. She muscled her way around the key for seven rebounds and five points. Hailey Ellsworth played hard all game long scoring two points and coming down with six rebounds. Hailey's two points could not have come at a better time, we were in need of a basket really bad during the third quarter and she sunk a baseline jumper right in front of a Soap Lake player. Angelica Suarez continues to improve every game with more and more playing time. She had two rebounds, one assist and two steals, all the while playing great full-court man-to-man defense against older more experienced players all game long. Yessenia Escoto came into the game during the third quarter and gave the team some very valuable minutes sparking the team. She played spectacular defense all quarter long after Whitni left the game. Yessenia also hit Marci with a pass that turned into an assist. Mindy Neal came into the game tonight and even though it was not for very long she worked extremely hard for the time that she was in there. Unfortunately, Mindy came into the game while we were on defense instead of offense because she can flat out light it up and I would have liked for her to get a chance to shoot the ball, after all she had eight of the jv's ten points in the earlier game.

VETTA MAYNARD: 12 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal
MARCI NELSON: 23 points, 14 rebounds, 2 steals
WHITNI ENGLAND: 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals
VERNA LACOURSE: 4 rebounds, 1 steal
ABBY BRIDGEWATER: 2 rebounds, 1 steal
VERONICA VANDERHOLM: 5 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal
HAILEY ELLSWORTH: 2 points, 6 rebounds
ANGELICA SUAREZ: 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals
YESSENIA ESCOTO: 1 assist
MINDY NEAL:

THANKS,
COACH CHRIS HILL