Tigers win loser-out, drop quarterfinal
WILBUR - The Odessa girls team will be playing for their season in every District 7 1B Tournament game going forward. The Tigers dominated Selkirk 43-18 in a first-round loser-out matchup Friday, Feb. 2, then dropped a quarterfinal matchup to top-seeded Curlew 47-41 Tuesday, Feb. 6.
The results mean Odessa will be playing a loser-out matchup against Republic at Deer Park High School Saturday, Feb. 10.
Odessa used a 2-2-1 zone press to shut down the Selkirk Rangers at Wilbur High School last Friday. The Tigers attacked the Rangers' zone defense using an inside-out attack, allowing Hayden Schuh to score 17 points and grab nine rebounds.
"They were our very first game of the season. We had everything in the middle, and they would just crash on us in the middle, and we would spread it out," Schuh said. "Sometimes we wanted it to be sluggish to waste down time and make sure only took an outside shot after the last 10 seconds (of the shot clock) so then we'd take a nice, good shot or try and drive."
Melloney Deife got going in the fourth quarter for eight points, while Leah Beth Claassen added seven points for the Tigers.
The first quarter was a defensive affair, as Odessa led just 6-2. The Tigers scored more points in the last 20 seconds of the second quarter than they did the entire first quarter, rattling off a 7-0 run in that span to take a 21-6 lead into halftime.
Odessa only built its lead from there, outscoring the Rangers 23-12 in the second half to comfortably move onto the District quarterfinals.
There, against one of the top teams in the state in Curlew, Odessa hung around but couldn't find enough offense to pull off the upset.
The Tigers took a 22-17 lead into halftime, but the Cougars woke up in the second half to outscore Odessa 30-19 to snatch a victory.
Schuh led the way with 24 of Odessa's 41 points while pulling down 12 rebounds. Deife added 12 points for the Tigers, while the rest of the team combined for five points.
"Second half, we struggled rebounding. They had a lot of second-chance shots," Odessa head coach Travis Schuh said. "We only shot 28% from the field...they really stepped up their defense second half. We only shot the ball eight times in the third quarter."
Odessa will look to keep its season alive in an all-Tiger matchup against Republic at 2 p.m. Saturday.
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