YAKIMA — Somewhere between the court and the locker room at halftime, the wheels fell off the W.F. West girl’s basketball team’s bus, and the Bearcats never recovered in a 58-33 loss to Prosser in the 2A state quarterfinals Thursday.
W.F. West went into the break up by five points, after scoring five points in the final minute of the second quarter. Julia Dalan had 11 points, and the Bearcats had held one of the higher-scoring offenses in the tournament to just 18 points in 16 minutes.
Then the second half began, and it all went wrong.
“They ramped up the pressure, and we didn’t execute the way we should have,” WFW coach Kyle Karnofski said.
When it was all said and done, the Mustangs had outscored the Bearcats 40-10 in the final two quarters. W.F. West turned the ball over 21 times in the second half —that’s just about once every 45 seconds, to be exact —to finish with 34 giveaways total.
Of those second-half turnovers, 11 came in the backcourt, giving it away before W.F. West could even get out the shadow of its own basket, setting Prosser up with a layup line.
“Turnovers are like a snowball effect,” Karnofski said. “One, two — not great. Three, four, five — that’s when it really hurts.”
Despite managing just three points in the third quarter, W.F. West did its best to stay afloat on defense. Eventually, the pressure became too much. After WFW missed back-to-back layups with three and a half minutes left in the period, Prosser drew a foul and hit two free throws to tie it up at 24-24. The Bearcats turned it over in the back court, the Mustangs took it the other way to take a 26-24 lead, and after another backcourt giveaway, Prosser made it a three-point game with a free throw.
From there, the deficit only grew. Prosser ended the third on a 6-0 run, then opened the fourth with back-to-back 3-pointers — both of which came after the Mustangs stole the ball in the backcourt — to make it a 42-26 ballgame.
From there, it was just about wrapped, with Prosser getting its lead out to 20 points three and a half minutes into the fourth quarter. The Mustangs also dominated the offensive glass, pulling down 17 offensive rebounds.
Julia Dalan finished with 16 points and eight rebounds, but was the only Bearcat to crack double-digits. She finished her afternoon 7 for 14 from the floor; the rest of the W.F. West roster combined to go 5 for 27.
W.F. West will bounce down to the consolation bracket Friday, taking on either Othello or Ellensburg in a loser-out matchup.
“We’ve got to be able to learn from this and grow,” Karnofski said. “We’ve got to be come back tomorrow and try to compete and hopefully beat whoever we can and get a trophy.”
