Girls eliminated at district tournament

SPOKANE - "We just couldn't shoot the ball."

That's how Lind-Ritzville/Sprague head coach Steve Wellsandt summed up his team's struggle at the Northeast 2B district tournament. The Broncos' season came to an end after losing to Northwest Christian Thursday 39-30 at West Valley High School in Spokane..

On Monday morning, Wellsandt was still struggling to adjust to his team's elimination.

"I'm still not over it, really," Wellsandt said. "After the season we had, we just didn't play our game."

Thursday's game with NWC was a loser-out game after the Broncos dropped to the consolation bracket after losing to Colfax in the semifinals two days earlier.

The Broncos opened Thursday's game looking like a team that didn't want to go home, jumping out to an early lead.

Up 6-2 with two minutes left in the first quarter, freshman Taylor Galbreath stole the ball and went coast-to-coast to attempt a layup. A NWC defender caught up with her, however, and blocked her shot. Galbreath kept her focus and recovered the rebound and went up with another shot to give LRS the 8-2 lead.

The Broncos closed out the quarter up 10-3. That would be the one and only quarter in which LRS outscored NWC.

The Broncos started the second quarter with a long scoring drought. The Crusaders quickly erased LRS' lead and opened one of their own. The Broncos trailed 17-14 at halftime.

LRS would fight their way back into the game a few times in the second half.

Down 23-17, Janaye Wilkie sank a three to make it 23-20. The LRS defense held NWC to a single free-throw on the next possession and Wilkie hit Dakita Killian in the post for a two pointer to make it 24-22.

The Crusaders responded with a basket, but LRS was not ready to go away yet. Bronco Julia Klein pulled down an offensive rebound and made the put-back to close the gap to two points again, 26-24.

The Broncos would never be that close again and went the remainder of the third quarter scoreless. The Crusaders opened scoring in the fourth quarter with a three to go up 31-24.

That basket seemed like the nail in the coffin as Bronco baskets from that point on were few and far in-between.

Killian finished the game with 16 points for the Broncos to lead all scorers. However, the next highest scorer was Wilkie with five. No one else had more than three for the Broncos.

Natalie Smith had 15 points for NWC and Ellie Sanders added 12.

The Broncos' struggle to score was a continuation of their woes against Colfax two nights earlier when they made only eight field-goals, no three-point baskets and failed to score a point in the third quarter.

"We did not shoot the ball well," Wellsandt repeated. "We missed a lot of lay-ins that could have made a huge difference because defensively, we didn't play bad."

Wellsandt preached defense from the start of the season and he said he thought the girls played good defense throughout the tournament.

"Our goal all year long was to hold teams to under 40 points," Wellsandt said. "And we did, offensively we just couldn't get in a rhythm."

Wellsandt says he thinks the team struggled to recover from a loss against Colfax to close the regular season on senior night. Heading into that game, the Broncos had won 10 out of its last 11 games, including a 54-31 win over Colfax on Jan. 11.

After Colfax avenged that game with a 50-48 win on senior night, the Broncos never seemed to look the same, even in their win against Kettle Falls to open the tournament.

"We looked rusty and struggled offensively against Kettle Falls," Wellsandt said. "There was just something that wasn't there."

Wellsandt is now trying to look ahead to next season when the Broncos will return four starters.