YAKIMA — Walla Walla saw a 19-point lead midway in the third quarter vanish in the fourth Monday night here against Yakima in a Northwest Athletic Conference East Region women’s basketball game.
But Warriors coach Bobbi Hazeltine wasn’t talking about that after her team regrouped and pulled out a 64-62 victory, its third in four days in the midst of a grueling eight-day gauntlet.
“You can say we blew a 19-point lead, but I look at it as a win in Yakima against a team that is playing so well right now,” Hazeltine said. “They have two of the better players in the East and we beat them at their place. We got the ‘W’ and that’s what I wanted.”
The Warriors led 37-24 at halftime and extended their lead to 49-30 with five minutes remaining in the third quarter. But with WWCC sophomore Kate Ferenz sitting on the bench with four fouls, Yakima’s Sequoia Swan sank a 3-pointer, drew a foul and converted a four-point play that drew the Yaks within 58-55 with 5:43 remaining in the game.
“Sequoia Swan is averaging 16 points a game and Kate was blanketing her,” Hazeltine said. “She’s one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, but Kate had held her to just one 3-pointer for the longest time.
“But when she made that four-point play, we had to put Kate back in the game with four fouls.”
Still, the Yaks managed to knot the score at 60-60 with 3:37 left.
After a couple of empty trips at both ends of the court, Ferenz drew a foul with 1:16 showing and sank two free throws for a 62-60 lead. However, neither team could score on its next possession.
Finally, Yakima’s Sammi Blodgett missed a shot with 6.8 seconds to play, WWCC’s Jade Skidmore rebounded and was fouled. She made 1-of-2 free throws for a 63-60 lead.
The Yaks eschewed a 3-point opportunity and scored a 2-point basket to cut Walla Walla’s lead to a single point, but only one second remained. Yakima was forced to foul and Skidmore again made one of her two chances at the line to complete the scoring with a 10th of a second remaining.
Skidmore led a balanced WWCC offense with 16 points. Ferenz finished with 11 points, Cierra Jo McKeown tallied nine and Kortney Hutchinson and Emily Hancock added eight points each.
Blodgett led all scorers with 25 points. Swan wound up with nine points on 3-of-13 shooting from the floor for the Yaks.
The Warriors improved to 3-1 in league play and 10-3 overall with their third straight victory. Yakima saw its league record even at 3-3, and 12-6 overall.
Walla Walla is back in action Wednesday when it hosts North Idaho and finishes its five-games-in-eight-days junket Saturday at Blue Mountain.
“This was our third win in four days and that’s the biggest thing,” Hazeltine said. “But we have kids with some pretty tired legs and we are going to have to go again Wednesday night.
“We went in Sunday for films and a walk through to get ready for Yakima,” she said. “We will probably do the same things (today) to prepare for North Idaho.”
