Lady Panthers take second, punch ticket to state tourney

It was a moment which would have made most eighth-grader hoopsters, playing at the varsity level, tremble in their high-top sneakers.

With just 10 seconds left in the game, and her team trailing by three points in the Eastern C Divisional Tournament championship game, Jada Sudbrack yanked down an offensive rebound, landed, elevated again and drained a two-point bucket off the glass, getting fouled in the process.

The Saco-Whitewater crowd in attendance went nuts. Her teammates slapped her on the back in appreciation. The opposition’s coach, Hinsdale’s Ralph Ellsworth, called not one, but two timeouts at-tempting to ice the eighth-grade forward prior to her free shot.

“He wanted to make me stall and freeze up,” said Sudbrack. “It was a lot of pressure. I’ve never felt that kind of pressure before.”

With poise and grace, Sudbrack stepped to the free-throw line, hoisted the shot and hit nothing but net. Tie game, 40-to-40. In a word: clutch.

Unfortunately for the Lady Panthers, Hinsdale senior Whitney Moline, with only eight seconds on the clock, took the ensuing inbound pass the length of the court and buried a 20-foot jumper over the outstretched arms of several Lady Panther defenders as time expired, stealing the contest 42-40 and capturing the first-place hardware.

During the two time outs called by Hinsdale, Lady Panther head coach Amber Erickson huddled her troops and advised them on how to proceed should Sudbrack sink her foul shot.

“I just told our players to keep them in front and don’t foul,” said Erickson after the game. “We had hands up there and forced a tough shot, it wasn’t like she had an open shot. It’s all you can do. It’s a heartbreaker.”

The loss to Hinsdale marks the second defeat to the Lady Raiders in as many weeks for the Saco-WW netters. With the second place finish at Divisional, the Lady Panthers advance to the Class C State Tournament in Hamilton in two weeks – in fact they knew they were state bound after watching the Mon-Dak team defeat Circle in consolation game.

Even though their state ticket had already been punched, it was apparent that the Lady Panthers wanted to bring the first place trophy home on Saturday night.

Saco-WW’s Tatum Moore hit the first of her team-high 13-points on a three-pointer to give the Lady Panthers an early 3-0 lead. Stingy defense by senior Shyla Gairrett and powerful post play from Larimie Scheffelmear pushed Saco-WW to a 10-4 lead after the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Scheffelmear caught an elbow under her left eye – everyone in the gym aside from the three refs witnessing it – which brought Sudbrack into the game. Late in the second, Keira Simonson hit a jumper from just outside the free-throw line to give the Lady Panther’s a 24-17 lead at the half.

The third quarter wasn’t as smooth for Saco-WW, however, and Hinsdale outpaced the Lady Panther 12-7 to pull within two points, 31-29, heading into the final quarter. The two teams traded baskets for most of the fourth quarter – neither team able to pull ahead by more than three points – and with just 30 seconds left on the clock, Molina hit two free throws to give the Lady Raiders a three point lead.

It was the following sequence in which Simonson brought the ball up court and a missed Lady Panther shot led to the Sudbrack rebound and put back before the Hinsdale last second victory shot.

“We had a little breakdown on defense there toward the end,” said Gairrett. “But I can’t take anything away from (Hinsdale.) They are a great team.”

The Lady Panther have now played Hinsdale four times on the season, winning both regular season games and dropping both games in the post season. There is a shot that the two teams could one again face off at the Class C Championship in two weeks in Hamilton, something that Gairrett, the team’s lone senior, would relish.

“I’d love to see them again,” she said. “If we meet again, we will be 3-and-2. We’ll get them.”

In order to get to the championship game against Hinsdale, the Saco-WW ladies had to fend off two worthy opponents. On Thursday afternoon, against Circle, the Lady Panthers were able to score dou-ble-digits in each or the four quarters while allowing the Wildcats to break 10 in only one quarter as they strolled to a 52-34 win.

“I thought they looked pretty sharp at times,” said coach Erickson after the Circle victory. “We still need to be able to step up to the free throw line and make our shots down the stretch, but I thought they fought hard today.”

In the victory, Kourtney Simonson scored a game-high 23-points while Scheffelmear netted eight, Ta-tum Moore scored seven, Gairrett had five, Kaycee Howard scored two and Kayla Howard had one.

On Friday night, Saco-WW was lead to victory over Westby-Grenora, marching to a 33-21 lead at halftime before escaping with a 10-point win, 51-41.

In that contest, Moore led all players with 19-points while Kourtney Simonson scored 15, Keira Simon-son scored seven and Scheffelmear and Gairrett each had four.

“Tatum played a really great game,” said Gairrett. “The whole team played great.”

Coach Erickson said that the two weeks off between now and the start of state will serve her team well as many of the players were under the weather with sickness this week. She said the next two weeks will be much like last week the team had off and will consist of watching game film, working on team speed as well as playing physical basketball.

Though the last second loss to Hinsdale will sting for a little while, coach Erickson said that in the long run she feels as the team’s two post season losses will help the Lady Panthers at state.

“It just makes us hungrier,” she said. “We had this one, but we fought through a lot this week and the kids left everything on the floor tonight and did everything they could to win so I am very proud of them.”