College Heights girls fall to Greenfield in district finals
Feb. 27—WEBB CITY, Mo. — The effort never sputtered for the College Heights Christian girls basketball team on a night when it seemingly couldn't catch any breaks.
But despite cutting a 22-point deficit to single digits late in the final quarter, foul trouble and offensive inconsistency proved to be too much to overcome for the top-seeded Cougars as they suffered a 58-44 loss to second-seeded Greenfield in the Class 2 District 12 championship game at the Cardinal Dome.
College Heights had five players foul out in the second half. Two of them, seniors Lainey Lett and Catie Secker, fouled out in the third quarter. Seniors Grace Bishop and Kaynahn Burk and sophomore Addie Lawrence fouled out in the final period.
With most of its starting lineup benched, College Heights pulled to within nine points on a layup by sophomore Jayli Johnson with one minute remaining in the game. The Wildcats went on to convert seven of eight free throw attempts the rest of the way to stave the Cougars off for the 14-point victory.
"They played hard all the way through," College Heights coach John Blankenship said of the Cougars. "Give Greenfield credit. They played well, shot the ball well. No. 12 (Marlie Wright) is just a great player who is very quick and hard to defend. We take full responsibility for the loss, but we got in early foul trouble with some calls that probably shouldn't have been called.
"At the end of the game when we extended our pressure, we created some turnovers and got back in the game. If we could have done that from the initial start, it might have been a different outcome. But again, my girls played hard. I love these seniors. I could not be more proud of them. They've meant so much to our program. It was tough in the locker room, having to go through that with them. ... We'd had such a great season with a lot of accomplishments. I told them to not let this diminish our season, but it's tough."
The Cougars finished their season with a 22-3 record and three tournament titles.
The Cougars were rolling early as they jumped out to a 7-1 lead just past the midway point of the first quarter. However, Greenfield responded by rattling off seven straight points to take a brief one-point lead late in the period. A pair of free throws by Bishop punctuated the quarter and gave College Heights a 9-8 lead heading into the second period.
The Wildcats built their first substantial lead in the second period. After a turnaround jumper in the paint by Lett gave College Heights a 15-13 edge, Greenfield scored the final 16 points of the period to take a 29-15 lead into halftime. Marlie Wright scored six points in the Wildcats' surge with two transition layups and a pair of made free throws.
Marlie Wright led the game in scoring with 28 points, while Tatum Torres added 11 points, Trista Torres eight points and Morgan Wright six points for Greenfield.
Johnson and Bishop paced the scoring for the Cougars with 18 and 12 points, respectively. Lett finished with seven points.
Contact Jared Porter on Twitter at @JaredRyanPorter.
