Dayton-Waitsburg girls basketball play well, but lose to Kittitas

One day after their first league game was cancelled because of illness, the Dayton-Waitsburg girls basketball team opened league play with a 57-35 home loss to Kittitas Saturday night.

In the last game of the season at the Dayton gym, the girls pushed themselves to the limit and played well in the loss. The rest of D-W’s home games will be played at the Waitsburg gym.

“I thought this was one of our best games yet,” Senior Captain Kira Boggs said. “No more setbacks, we’re only going up from here.”

D-W Head Coach Tamira Cully also recognized the effort given by her team being down two key Juniors, Cassidy Laughery and Mackena Culley, for this game.

“The girls played hard tonight, but we had some breakdowns that allowed Kittitas to stay on top,” she said. “(Senior Kyra) Rupp for Kittitas was a hard force to stop, with 26 points.”

The key stretch to the game started with 2:30 left in the first quarter and the entire second quarter. With the game tied 8-8, 8th grader Brooke Ravet hit one of her two 3-point shots to start the Coyotes on a 20-6 run that D-W never recovered from.

During that space of time, D-W had numerous opportunities but missed six shots, turned the ball over 10 times and missed seven free throws, including the first shot of two one-and-ones. This proved to be the difference in this contest.

Despite the deficit, Dayton-Waitsburg came out hustling in the second half in the face of a full-court press. Freshman Claudia Benavides, playing in her first full varsity game, was the leading scorer for D-W with 14. She also had five steals.

Senior Sadie Seney finished with a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Seney also had D-W’s shot of the night, scoring in the fourth quarter with a minute left. In traffic, she missed a shot, but fought hard for the rebound and put the ball back up into the basket.

Dayton-Waitsburg (0-5, 0-1) will next travel to the Mac-Hi holiday tournament in Milton-Freewater, OR on Friday and Saturday. Friday, the girls play at noon, and on Saturday they play at 10:30 a.m.

Friday’s league game against Liberty Christian will be made up at a later date in Waitsburg.

Kittitas 15 14 19 9 57

D-W 8 6 13 8 35

Statistics

Kittitas (57): Rupp 26, Moore 10, Allphin 6, Ravet 6, Adam 4, Graham 3, Phillips 3. 3-pts: Ravet 2, Moore, Adam, Graham.

Dayton-Waitsburg (35): Benavides 14, Seney 10, Boggs 4, Foreny 3, Miller 2, Larsen 2. 3-pts: Boggs, Seney.