WP Free Throws Finally Fall (and so does Dayton)

WAITSBURG - Waits­burg Prescott's year-long Achilles' heel has been free throw shooting. Blessed with depth at forward, and experience, quickness, and shooting ability at guard, the Cards expected more out of their season thus far. But per­formances like last week's 4-point loss to fourth place Tri-Cities, where WP missed on 29 of 41 free throw at­tempts, put the Cards in a precarious perch three games behind first place De­Sales and two behind second place Dayton coming into this weekend.

That all changed Friday as WP rode a 73 percent shooting night from the foul line-including 12-of-14 made freebies in the fourth quarter-to a 59-48 vic­tory over visiting valley rival Dayton.

The win, coupled with WP's win over Asotin Sat­urday and Dayton's loss to DeSales Saturday, has the Cards in a tie with the Bull­dogs for ???? place heading into the final week of the regular season.

Dayton emerged from the first quarter with a 1-point lead, 14-13. WP turned the tables in its favor big-time in a bloody second period.

WP amped up its defense in the second holding Day­ton scoreless for the first 6:55 of the quarter, while bucketing 11 points to take a 10-point lead they would hold at half. Both sides suf­fered a blow five minutes into the quarter when lead­ing scorer McKayla Bick­elhaupt and Cardinal center Samantha Fedderson col­lided head-to-head. Bickel­haupt sustained a gash in her scalp and left the court with blood-pink streaks in her blonde hair. She returned to the game in the third quarter. Fedderson, a WP presence inside, also left the game, but did not return.

Dayton came out of the halftime break with des­peration in its play. Down 12 early in the third period after a Stacia Deal 3-pointer, Dayton launched into a 13-5 run in the middle 5:30 of the period that shrank the deficit to four, 36-32.

That's when WP forward Katy Hofer moved to the outside from her usual post position and buried a Day­ton momentum-killing three from the right corner. WP held a 7-point advantage at that point and held the same margin at 41-34 entering the fourth.

Dayton again rallied, scoring seven of the first eight points of the quarter. The Bulldogs trailed by just one, 42-41, with just under four minutes remain­ing, though they could have been leading by four had they done better than 1-for-6 from the free throw line in the stretch.

The turning point of the game came with 4:12 re­maining and Lexus Ward at the line for the Dogs. Trail­ing by one, with the Dayton crowd feeling its first lead in 20 minutes approaching and momentum clearly on the Bulldog side, Ward went to the line and missed both free throws. The Cards rebound­ed and commenced one of the most concentrated spurts of scoring in girls' basketball this year.

WP pounded the Bull­dogs to the tune of 17 points in less than three minutes. The big blow came after Dayton called a time out in response to a Hofer el­bow shot that upped the Cards' lead to six with 2:40 left. Dayton misfired on its ensuing possession. WP rebounded and responded with a Chelsey Brannock 3 attempt. The shot missed, but Hofer was there to scoop up the miss and put it back for two. Four seconds later, Krystal Harris scored for WP after stealing the in­bounds pass to push the lead to 10 with just under two minutes remaining.

Dayton refused to give in. The Bulldogs scored seven points down the stretch, but each time they scored they were forced to foul the Car­dinals to save time. In past games this strategy would have worked. Instead, WP hit all eight of its foul shots taken after being intention­ally fouled. Harris hit six of those baskets; Heidi Miller the other two.

Harris finished the game with 14 points, nine of them coming via free throws in the fourth quarter. Hofer, forced to shoulder more of the usual load inside with Fedderson out, topped all scorers with 20. Both Bickelhaupt and Jessica Tate hit double figures for Dayton with 15 and 11 points respectively.

Amazingly, WP pulled off its victory without starters Fedderson, Deal, and Hofer on the court at the end of the game. Deal fouled out at the 5:08 mark of the fourth when Dayton trailed by just one, and Hofer fouled out with a minute-and-a-half to go.

"Other girls stepped up and did the job," WP coach Jerry Baker said of his team's dominating stretch run without some starters. "I'm tickled to death the way we fought back, because we let them back in the ballgame after being up ten at halftime. We let 'em back in, but then we took control there down the stretch.

"Katy had a big game. She went 7-for-10 from the field, and 5-for-8 from the line," continued Baker. "She's ac- tually one of our best 3-point shooters, but you can't move her out there, because we don't have any other posts."

"Jerry ran a box-and-one on us tonight," noted Dayton coach Clayton Strong. "We didn't adjust to it too well. We thought at some point this season we might see some- thing like that because McK- ayla's been scoring so much. We were really bothered by that box-and-one zone. That more than anything is what got us. We didn't push the ball up when we had the chances, and that enabled them to set up into it.

"We played them even the first quarter," Strong con- tinued. "Malia (Frame) got seven points in the first half in the post, but then we stopped looking to the post and didn't execute. In the second half we started pushing the ball, and made that run that got us to within one."