Tuesday's Girls Basketball: Prairie Takes Bearcats to School

As a perennial title contender in the 2A girls basketball ranks W.F. West regularly makes an effort to seek out and compete with some of the toughest teams in the region regardless of size or skill. It’s a tactic that has helped the Bearcats over the years as they prepare for their slog through the 2A Evergreen Conference and their annual trip down the old tournament trail.

On Tuesday, though, the Bearcats found themselves in way over their heads against the 3A Falcons of Prairie as they fell, hard, 78-50 in a non-league contest on their home court.

Prairie (4-0) boasts a pair of Division I signees in center Brooke Walling and guard Cassidy Gardner, as well as a bevy of sharpshooters and pickpockets that helped to keep the pressure on W.F. West all game long. Conversely, W.F. West once again found themselves playing without several of their most critical pieces due to an early, and acute, bout of the injury bug.

Most notably, playmaker Erika Brumfield tore her ACL in the season’s first game at Washougal and will miss the rest of the season. Adding to their woes was the fact that senior guard Courtney Bennett is still sitting out with an elbow injury suffered at Washougal that could keep her out as long as six more weeks. Taya McCallum is also out for the season with an ACL injury and Annika Waring is still working back from a shoulder injury suffered last softball season.

With all of that experience and talent busy keeping the W.F. West bench warm the Bearcats simply found themselves lacking the size, firepower, and composure to keep pace with a Falcons team that was firing on all cylinders.

“There’s a lot of injuries but the schedule doesn’t change. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We play them home and away every year and we always battle and we’ll be better because of this,” said W.F. West coach Tom Kelly. “We’re banged up and we’ve got help on the way but in the meantime you learn a lot of things from it.”

Kelly chalked up some of his team’s early struggles to nerves in their first home game of the season. Those nerves turned into seven first quarter turnovers for the Bearcats as they fell behind 22-6 and failed to find any rhythm on offense.

W.F. West bounced back a bit in the second quarter and played Prairie to a 20-20 tie in the period. They even cut the Falcons lead to just five points with about four minutes left in the first half, but those brief gains were quickly washed away and they wound up trailing 42-26 at the intermission. When Prairie outscored W.F. West 23-6 in the third quarter all hope for saving face was lost.

“On our man defense we had no help and we really need to work on that. We don’t play a lot of man but we’ve got to be more aggressive. Jump the passing lanes. That’s what we do. That’s how we play,” Kelly said when searching for lessons from the lopsided loss.

Kelly also noted that his team needs to improve on their closeout defense on three point shooters while finding a way to put the ball through the cylinder themselves.

He suggested that his team should be “paying rent” by putting up more shots in the gymnasium while nobody is watching. For the game Prairie shot 51 percent from the field while W.F. West connected on just 18 of their 43 shots (41 percent).

Prairie was paced in scoring by Gardner’s 22 points. Kendyl Carson added 13 points for the Falcons while Allison Corral chipped in 12 points.

W.F. West was led by Drea Brumfield’s 15 points while Madi Haakenson added 14 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

It was Maggie Vadala, though, who drew the biggest heap of post game praise from her coach.

“Maggie stood out to me by how hard she played. I mean that’s how we play. That’s what I’m used to seeing and that’s what stood out to me is how hard she played,” said Kelly of Vadala, who posted nine points, four rebounds, six assists and two steals. “If we all get going like that then we're going to be fine. And then we’ll get some people back and we’re going to be fine.”

W.F. West (1-2) will host Elma on Friday.

Schow’s Lead Beavers Past Bulldogs

TENINO — Kaylee and Ashley Schow each recorded a double-double to lead Tenino to a 61-42 win over Stevenson in a non-league girls basketball game here on Tuesday.

Ashley Schow scored 15 points and grabbed 17 rebounds and Kaylee scored 10 points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

Rhian Mathis added 14 points and Alivia Hunter chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds for the Beavers.

Tenino coach Brandi Thomas was pleased with the ball sharing and passing the Beavers showed against the Bulldogs.

“We were getting up and down the floor pretty well. They did a good job recognizing the fast break and hitting girls in the open lane,” Thomas said. “We were doing a great job connecting with each other. I couldn't be more proud of them.”

Tenino held a one point lead after the first quarter but expanded the lead to 30-22 at halftime. The Beavers kept their distance in the third quarter and scored 20 points in the fourth quarter to claim victory.

Tenino (5-1) hosts Rochester at 5:30 p.m. in a girls-boys doubleheader on Friday.

Warriors Fall to Lumberjills

LONGVIEW — Rochester ran into a Lumberjill buzzsaw here on Tuesday, falling to R.A. Long 68-46 in a non-league girls basketball game.

Paige Winter led all scorers with 25 points and added eight rebounds. Lexi Jones-Sederberg added 13 points.

R.A. Long’s Eastyn Reeves led R.A. Long with 19 points and Rayana Randall recorded 14 points.

The first quarter ended with a 16-8 R.A. Long lead and was expanded to 35-20 at halftime. Rochester played better in the second half but the deficit was too much to overcome.

“We didn’t play too well defensively. Their point guard made some phenomenal plays,” Rochester coach Davina Serdahl said. “We dug ourselves a hole. We got it down to about 10, but then they went on another run. Defensively, we didn’t play all that great. Paige had a great overall game and worked really hard.”

Rochester (2-3) travels to Hoquiam on Thursday for a non-league game.

Tigers Take Down River Ridge for First Win

Centralia captured their first win of the season in front of their home fans here on Tuesday as they turned away River Ridge by a score of 42-23 in non-league girls basketball action.

It was defense that led the Tigers to victory as they held River Ridge to single digit points in each quarter except the fourth when the Hawks managed 10 points on the nose. Centralia also held River Ridge to just an 18 percent shooting as they sank nine of their 50 shot attempts.

“Our goal every game is to try to keep teams under 40 points and we’ve been able to add some pressure and our man-to-man is getting a lot better. The overall team defense was great tonight,” said Centralia coach Doug Ashmore.

Hannah Porter scored a game-high 11 points while Carissa Kaut and Madelinn Corwin each added eight points for Centralia. Kennedy Strophy and Kylie Sharp each scored five points and grabbed a team-high five rebounds.

Despite the win Ashmore pointed out there are still areas where his team needs to improve. Namely, they’ve got to get their shots to fall as the Tigers hit just 24 percent of their field goal attempts and 18 of 32 free throws.

“We’ve got to get better at free throw shooting. We’ve just got to do a better job of that because we’re doing a great job of getting to the line and just not taking advantage of it,” said Ashmore.

Centralia (1-4) will play on Tuesday at Hoquiam.