Centre girls advance to substate semi-finals
Staff writer
The Centre Lady Cougars defeated Peabody-Burns 37-24 Monday to advance to the semi-finals of the Goessel substate tournament.
Centre led 11-0 at the end of the first quarter after Katie Marler made a 3-pointer, and Shelby Pankratz, Emily Schlesener, and Summer Espinoza combined for 8.
The Lady Cougars led by as many as 17 points, but the Lady Warriors came within 9 points late in the fourth quarter.
Four free throws and a basket by Kate Basore, 2 free throws by Kelsey Hett, and 1 free throw each from Pankratz and Schlesener as the game wound down contributed to Centre’s 13-point victory.
“I like that our scoring again was balanced and that we shot free throws well at 71 percent,” coach Alan Stahlecker said. “It also was important that we kept Peabody off the line most of the night, as they only shot 2 free throws.”
Centre will play Rural Vista at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Friday
The 2016-17 Centre basketball regular season ended on a positive note as both teams won games against Blue Valley/Randolph Friday.
Playing to a full house at home on parents’ night, the girls’ team won 45-42, finishing with a record of 11-9. The boys won 89-39, improving their record to 15-5.
Five seniors on the boys’ team — Brendan Bina, Dylan Deines, Daniel Rudolph, Alex Stika, and Cody Svoboda — were starters. The other senior, James Spohn, was sidelined with an injury.
The Cougars faced little competition as Blue Valley had a very small roster made up of mostly underclassmen. Stika, who has seen little varsity action, made two consecutive layups to start the game, and all of the other varsity players added points.
Quarterly scores —25-5, 51-14, 70-28, and 89-39 — tell the story.
Blue Valley had a hard time getting inside to score but did have 7 treys. Centre’s leading scorers were Deines, 24; Methvin, 18, including 10 free throws; Svoboda, 12; Xavier Espinoza, 12; and Cole Srajer, 10.
The Cougars are seeded first in the substate tournament at Goessel. They have a first-round bye and will play Goessel or Little River at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Freshman Kelsey Hett led the Lady Cougars in their Friday victory, scoring a career high 20 points including 17 of 22 free throw attempts. She broke the school record of 14 free throws, set by Carlye Simons in 2010 and Shelby Makovec in 2014 and 2015. Hett also set a new record in attempts, the old one being 20, set by Allison Shields in 2011.
The Lady Cougars jumped to an early 13-5 lead and extended it to 12 points during the second quarter, but Blue Valley came back and tied the game at 32-32 in the second half. Blue Valley led 35-32 before Centre battled back to finish with a 3-point victory.
“Our ability to get to the free throw line and make the free throws, as well as our ability to score from inside were critical to this win,” coach Alan Stahlecker said. “The 20 of 26 shooting from the free throw line was big.”
Espinoza, Pankratz, and Schlesener, each had 7 rebounds. Pankratz had 4 assists, and Marler had 3. Hett had 3 steals.