Cardinals Are League Champions

WAITSBURG - Until Cardinals announcer Fred Hamann spoke the words, it hadn't quite sunk in for the players and hometown crowd on Kison Court after the final buzzer sounded.

With their wins over the Irish Saturday night, both varsity teams are now guaranteed the top spot in the league, with their first playoff game at home Feb. Xx.

"And with that win, the Waitsburg-Prescott Cardinals are now league champions," Hamann said as the crowd broke into a prolonged cheer.

The Cardinals men's team beat DeSales 71-41 after the Lady Cardinals beat their Irish counterparts 50-40. Both teams beat WWVA handily on Wednesday night. With two more league games left next weekend against Liberty Christian and Tri- Cities Prep, the Cardinals remain undefeated in the league.

The men's record is now 10-0 in league and 16-1 overall. The women have won all their games, giving them a 10-0 league record and 17-0 overall.

Neither team has made it this far in some time. Last year, the Cardinals placed second, went to Spokane and got knocked out of the state tournament early.

"These kids are just playing very hard," WP men's head coach T.J. Scott said after the DeSales game. "They'll do anything it takes to win games."

It's the first time under Scott's three years as coach that the Cardinals have secured the top seed in the league.

It was easy to see this weekend why the 2010 Cardinals have gone as far as they have.

The highly disruptive WP defense forced the Irish to make hard shots, many of which they missed. Scott estimated that the Cardinals kept DeSales to only one out of every three field goals.

The early scoring was fairly even, though WP already had a slight lead by the end of the first quarter 13-10.

"We came out kind of slow at first, like we have the entire season," Scott said. "It's like the kids have to feel out the other team first."

But Scott said his team came out swinging in the second quarter and kept building the pressure from there. It started out with a trey from Zach Bartlow, putting the Cardinals ahead 16-10. Another Bartlow trey later in the first half helped widen the points gap to 25-14.

For a while, it seemed like the Irish were fighting back with in-kind responses to fast breaks and treys, but the Cardinals just kept pouring it on, finishing the first half with nearly double DeSales' points at 33-18.

WP sustained the doublepoints advantage through the third, ending the period up 52-28. The Cardinals developed a tight cordon around the key, blocking almost every conceivable passage by mirroring attackers' every motion.

And when DeSales did break through, they often missed their first layup attempt and saw their attack melt away to a Cardinals' rebound.

" We really outworked them," Scott said. "That's how we've been winning games."

Scott said the first encounter with DeSales resulted in only a 9-point win.

With 1:43 minutes remaining in the second half and the score at 67-36, De- Sales scored a trey only to see Kris Cady struggle it right back from them on the Irish next possession and lay it up for 2 before being fouled and making both shots from the free throw line - 71-39.

The Irish managed to score only once more before WP sealed another victory at 71-41 and secured the league's top seed for the playoffs.

"It was a pleasant surprise," Bartlow said.

He said the team looked good from the beginning, but it's always been hard to get such a great league record.

"I don't know that I ever thought we were going to be this good," Bartlow said.

Fellow teammate T. J. Hofer, who Scott said put in a phenomenal effort during the second half against DeSales, said he knew his team could go all the way.

"I figured we'd go far this season," he said.

The women's court battle was closer, though the Cardinals' kept around a two-digit lead for most of the game.

The challenge of facing a team as aggressive as De- Sales keeps the Cardinals on their toes and prepares them for the two last remaining games and the playoffs, head coach Jerry Baker said.

"It's good for us to play somebody like that again," he said. "We have a tough time with their quickness and pressure."

But just like their male counterparts, the WP women's defense was effective in shutting down the two-point field goal shots.

They were lucky the Irish's signature three-point air attack didn't succeed any better, Baker said.

"They live or die by their three-point shots," he said. "They got as many of those as they did two-point baskets."

Senior Cardinal Alyssa Hafen said her team was worried about stopping the longer shots.

"If they had made more of those, we would have been in trouble," she said. "We let them shoot those all night."

By the start of the second half, the Cardinals were up 21-16. Senior Megan Withers set the tone with a twopointer that was received by the Kison court fans with loud applause.

Moments later, Kristen Potter managed a fast break before she stumbled. From where she fell, she somehow got the ball off to Hafen who took it to Irish board and laid it up for two more points, pushing up her team up to 25-16.

More excitement followed as Cardinal Dionna Baker blocked and slapped a DeSales pass on the WP key, and then passed it to Potter who laid it up for the two points. Before the Irish knew what hit them, Potter went on another fast break and repeated the crowd-pleasing jumping score, prompting the DeSales coach to call a time out: Cardinals 33, Irish 22. The third quarter ended 38-29.

The game wasn't clean very far into the fourth quarter. Foul exchanges soon broke out with the Cardinals drawing the balance of them. Still, with about two minutes to go, the Irish came within five (43-38) because of WP fouls but saw the gap open up again as Ronnie Hulce, Genesis Pearson, Potter and Hafen scored after they were fouled, some of them in their own key before they could even emerge from a rebound.

The Cardinals prevailed 50-40.

" We started off slow, but us seniors stepped up," Hafen said. "I knew it was going to be tough, but I also knew if we played the way we're capable of, we'd pull through."

Last Wednesday, both Cardinals teams beat Walla Walla Valley Academy.

The men's team won 69- 46, while the Lady Cardinals subdued the Knights 64-23.

It took the WWVA women's team until 1 minute before the end of the first quarter to score its first point against the Cardinals. The first half ended with WP up 33-11.

The third quarter saw the Cardinals jump ahead 47-14. The Knights seemed to have plenty of shots, but too few drained the hoop.

The WWVA men were more skillful shooters and did a better job keeping the Cardinals on their toes.

Still, WP made more shots and layups with Bartlow's two-pointer just before the end of the third period putting his team ahead 60- 30.

WP vs DeSales

Women

50-40

WP (50): Kristin Potter 21; Alyssa Hafen 9; Megan

Withers 7; Dionna Baker 6; Ronnie Hulce 5; Hailey

Goenen 1 and Genesis Pearson 1. Free throws: 17/30 for

56 percent.

Men

71-41

WP (71): Zach Bartlow 23; Matt Hamilton 11; T.J.

Hofer 9; Kris Cady 8; Tyler Baxter 6; Guillermo Hernandez 6; David Brock 3; Dustin Wooderchak 2; Tre Brannock 2; and Austin Beasley 1. Free throws: 19/28 for 68

percent.