Bearcats’ lead evaporates as West Valley buzzer beater sends them to 2A losers’ bracket, 44-43
The problem with buzzer-beaters is that for every inspiring pile of players boiling off their bench to congratulate the hero, there’s a dead silent locker room filled with broken hearts.
The seventh-seeded W.F. West girls lost a 12-point second half lead in its 2A quarterfinal match-up with No. 8 West Valley on Thursday at the Yakima Valley SunDome and fell, 44-43, on an Eagles layup with less than a second to play.
West Valley eliminated its second Evergreen Conference foe in as many days from championship contention. They had blasted Black Hills, 67-36, on Wednesday and meet a third EvCo team, No. 3 Tumwater, in a semi-final tonight at 5:30 p.m.
W.F. West plays East Valley at 10:30 a.m. in a consolation game. The Red Devils lost their quarterfinal to Tumwater, 43-38.
Seniors Annika Waring and Taya McCallum led the Bearcats with 10 points apiece while sophomore Drea Brumfield added nine points, six rebounds and three blocked shots. Guard Alyssa Amann paced West Valley with 14 points while forward Aliyah Henry added 11 points and a game-high eight rebounds.
The teams battled to a 17-17 tie at the end of a quarter, before W.F. West appeared to take control with a 32-24 halftime lead.
“I loved our first half. Our first half was phenomenal,” said W.F. West coach Kyle Karnofski. “It was as good a first 16 minutes as we’ve played all year. Our defense held them to 8-of-26 shooting.
“We lived on our defense all year. It was great today, too.”
When Brumfield nailed a 3-pointer just two minutes into the second half, the Bearcats led, 36-24.
But a defensive adjustment by West Valley slowed W.F. West’s offense and the Eagles slowly chipped away at the Bearcats’ lead.
“They went to a little bit of a match-up zone,” said Karnofski. “We wanted to cut and flash to open spots. We struggled at times to get to those spots.”
Jillian Taylor – remember that name – hit a 3-pointer from the deep left corner with two minutes to play that made it a one-point game, 40-39. But Waring countered with a 3-pointer of her own from the corresponding spot in the Bearcats’ front court and the lead was again four.
West Valley forced a couple of turnovers and cut it to one again, 43-42, on an elbow jumper by Nevaeh Sherwood with 33 seconds to play. The Eagles had just two fouls at that point so had to quickly take five intentional fouls to force the Bearcats to the foul line and did so quickly.
Karnofski had no regrets about not trying to play keep away to use up more clock.
“You don’t want to get too cute and get a turnover in the backcourt, a five-second count or a moving screen,” he said.
Waring then missed a free throw for the first time in the game. The Eagles called timeout.
Getting it to Taylor on the inbounds with less than ten seconds to play, West Valley could only watch as she heaved a wild floater high up onto the glass, nowhere close. Then the Eagles could only go crazy with joy as Taylor tracked down her own miss and laid the ball in with six-tenths of a second to play.
“It’s not a conversation you want to have,” said Karnofski of what he told his team in the post-game locker room. “We have three seniors who’ve given so much to this program over four years and leave a great legacy.
“Now we have to get ready to play a team that had a similar game to us, that was in the game and though they had a chance to win it.”
