WP’s Defense Allows Asotin To Prevail 59-43

ASOTIN -- The WP Lady Cardinals were defeated by the Asotin Panthers, 59-43, last Friday night in Asotin.

Although the Cardinals held Asotin stand-out JaLisa Jose to just 11 points, it was the team's lack of boxing out and crashing the boards that was their demise. Jose brought down 26 rebounds for the night, many of those under the Cardinal hoop.

WP's Ronnie Hulce and Hailey Goenen got the defense started with half-court steals from the Panthers, but the Cardinals had trouble executing their fast break lay-ups, and the turnovers under the basket began.

Hulce did hook up with Kristin Potter underneath for the Cardinals first basket, but the Panthers quickly answered.

Potter returned with a baseline drive drawing the foul, but only connected on one free throw. Asotin quickly answered with another bucket for two. WP's Potter took the in-bound pass and was coming in hot before she pulled up in the key for two.

The Panthers put up five more points on the board while the Cardinals suffered repeated turnovers under their basket.

It was Katy Hofer who banked one in from down low and Krystal Harris put the ball in from behind the three-point line at the buzzer. This left the Cardinals down, 10-14, at the end of the first quarter.

Ronnie Hulce took her turn at the line next sinking both of her free throws, but the Panthers made two more buckets leaving the Cardinals down, 13-23.

Hulce took a defensive rebound the length of the floor for two points and put one more in with a bank shot from down low with 1 minute on the clock.

In an unlikely fashion, the Panthers were called for yet another foul and WP's Doepker put one more free throw through the hoop to narrow the Panther lead, 21-29, going into the locker room.

Hulce dominated the third quarter for the Cardinals in scoring, taking a Potter baseline dish off for two, sinking two free throws, and landing two more buckets for the Cards. This totaled eight third-quarter points. Hulces' scoring spree was soon shut down by foul trouble and she soon found herself with five fouls and a spot on the bench with 3:43 left in the game.

Potter led the fourth quarter scoring with five free throws and a three-point basket along with another trey from Harris, but it wasn't enough to shut the Panthers down and the Cardinals fell short, 43-59.

Hulce got the gold star of the night going 100 percent from the free-throw line. She totaled 16 points, seven rebounds, three steals and five blocked shots.

Two more Cardinals broke into double digits, with Potter landing 13 points and six rebounds and Harris adding 10 points and seven rebounds. Overall the Cardinals shot 59 percent from the line and only 26 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 24 times.

The Cardinals have another tough league match up next Friday against the DeSales Fighting Irish in Walla Walla witha6p.m.tipoff.