Black Hills downs Mark Morris in OT to survive until Saturday

The most important thing for the Black Hills High School girls basketball team to do was survive on Friday morning.

“You’ve got to live to see another day,” coach Tanya Greenfield said. “That’s what I kept telling them. You’ve just got to live to see one more day. They knew that was there, and they knew what it took.”

What it took was an extra four minutes of basketball, but the eighth-ranked Wolves slipped by Mark Morris, 62-58, in overtime in a loser-out game at the Yakima Valley SunDome.

Black Hills gets to play on Saturday at the Class 2A state basketball tournament.

“This is our first time going to state, and I know I didn’t want it to end on Friday,” junior guard Emma Duff said. “We didn’t want to go home, the whole team knew that.”

Duff made it perfectly clear. She scored a game-high 26 points and pulled down 10 rebounds as the Wolves rallied from a Thursday afternoon loss that sent them into the consolation bracket.

The Wolves handled the Monarchs, 53-30, in the Southwest District 4 championship game three weeks ago, but with a full roster.

This time, Black Hills had to do it without freshman forward Maisy Williams, who left the tournament after Thursday’s game due to a previously scheduled event.

Without Williams in the post, the Wolves had trouble containing Mark Morris freshman Brooke Walling, who is 6-foot-1. Walling finished with 16 points for the Monarchs. Zsaleh Parvas had 17, and Madison Mosier added 10.

“It was hard without Maisy,” Duff said. “We had to shut down Brooke. It was hard, but I think everyone stepped up. Taylor Patti was ready for the opportunity, and she did great.”

Patti contributed 13 points and eight rebounds for the Wolves.

“That was our first overtime game of the season, so I wasn’t sure how that was going to pan out,” Greenfield said. “Our defense in the end, that last two minutes of overtime, they had a hard time scoring.”

Walling hit a 3-pointer to give Mark Morris the lead with three minutes, 24 seconds to play in overtime. Those were the only points the Monarchs scored in the extra period.

The Wolves went on a 7-0 run — capped by Duff’s short floater over three defenders — to secure the win.

Black Hills (22-4) will play Washougal (20-6) at 8 a.m. Saturday in the fourth/sixth-place game.

The Wolves beat the Panthers, 49-44, in the district semifinals.

“It’s Washougal again,” Duff said. “I think we’re going to have the same mindset. I mean, if we can do it against Mark Morris, we can do it against them.”

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Black Hills downs Mark Morris in OT to survive until Saturday."