Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
ScrEagles find offense in spurts
Reardan freshman Lillie Whitman looks to get a play set up against Davenport Tuesday, Dec. 12.
DAVENPORT - A rivalry game is rarely pretty, no matter how much better one team may be than the other on paper. Take, for instance, this year's Apple Cup, where Washington State forced undefeated Washington to have to put together a game winning drive just to hold off the bowl-less Cougars. Or the Los Angeles Rams always seeming to give the Seattle Seahawks fits despite the Seahawks often sporting the superior roster.
And the cliché certainly applied to Tuesday night's WinterFest girls basketball game, but it was the Reardan Screaming Eagles finding just enough offense to hold off Davenport 40-32 Tuesday, Dec. 13.
Trying to hold serve on their home court, Davenport grinded out a 9-7 first quarter lead thanks to six points from Clare Lathrop.
But Tenice Waters found her offense for Reardan in the second quarter while Davenport's offense sputtered, giving the Screaming Eagles a 20-13 halftime lead.
"Our defense was decent," Davenport head coach Stacia Soliday said. "Our offense was not."
The Gorillas weren't going down quietly. Davenport outscored Reardan 12-5 in the third quarter to tie the slugfest 25-25 going into the fourth as the Screaming Eagles struggled with turnovers, but eight straight points from Reardan to start the final eight minutes essentially put the game away.
"I'm really happy with effort and defense, but disappointed in our offense," Reardan head coach Bob Swannack said. "We haven't spent much time on offense, but plan to moving forward."
Waters carried the scoring load for Reardan, notching 22 points and eight rebounds. Sister Chasyn Waters added 11 points and nine rebounds.
"I think it was our coach calling a timeout and making us slow down and come back together," Tenice Waters said. "We were all in our heads, and we kind of figured it out after that."
Davenport post Clare Lathrop led the way with 18 points, but the rest of the Gorillas were shut down. Glenna Soliday was the second-highest scorer with five points.
"We work on defense 80% of practice," Waters said. "We've done defense since the first week. We haven't even worked on offense. That's why it was crappy until the fourth quarter."
The game would have been much closer, and possibly a different result, had Davenport not shot 1-for-13 from the free throw line.
"That was very bad for us," Stacia Soliday said. "If we would have made a couple as we went along, we probably would've been closer as we went along."
Reardan improved to 3-1 with the victory, while Davenport fell to 1-2.
It was the first time Swannack topped Soliday in his third season coaching the Screaming Eagles.
"It's good to get my first win vs. Stacia and Davenport," Swannack said. "I really respect her and her coaching. She genuinely gets the most out of her teams."
The Screaming Eagles host Chewelah at 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15, while Davenport is at St. George's at that time.
And both teams return to the court Saturday. Davenport is at Chewelah at 4:30 p.m., while Reardan hosts Northwest Christian at the same time.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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