| Lady
Pirates to face Garden Valley
The Prairie Lady Pirates will open state tournament action at 6:15 p.m. Mountain Time against District 3 champion Garden Valley Wednesday, Feb. 14. Garden Valley is also the defending state champion. They will be playing at Columbia High School, a new high school in Nampa located at 301 S. Happy Valley Road. Take the Garrity Blvd. (Idaho Center) exit, toward town and turn left at the light on N. Happy Valley Road and follow it south to the school. N. Happy Valley Rd. turns into S. Happy Valley Rd. at Powerline Road. Lapwai will be playing Hagerman at the same location at 1:15 p.m. MST. Genesee will be play Cascade at 8 p.m. MST at Nampa High School. The other two teams in Prairie’s section of the bracket are Raft River and Rimrock. Prairie will play one of those two teams at either 8 p.m. on Thursday if they win or 3 p.m. on Thursday if they lose. If they get past Thursday they will move to Nampa High School for Friday’s game which would be at either11:45 a.m. in the consolation bracket, 3 p.m. if they win Wednesday and lose Thursday or 8 p.m. if they win both their first two games. This is Prairie’s first trip to State since they took second at State in 2002 as a 2-A school. Lady Pirates dominate second half to beat Troy The Prairie Lady Pirates stayed alive at District with a 48-30 win over Troy on Friday, Feb. 9. They dominated the second half after a shaky first half that saw the score tied 18-18 at the break. 
Scoring was hard to come by early as a pair of free throws by Becky Gehring was the only scoring in the first 5:50 of the game. Sarah Arnzen made it 4-0 with a nifty move for a lay-up with 2:10 left in the opening quarter. 25 seconds later Troy got on the scoreboard but Jennifer Enneking drove the lane for a lay-up to make it 6-2 with 40 seconds left in the opening period. Troy hit 3 free throws to cut the lead to 1 but Tiffany Schaeffer banked one in with 3 seconds left to make it 8-5. A 3-pointer from the corner by Nicole Nida and a hook shot by Schaeffer pushed the lead to 13-5 but then Prairie went cold again. Troy scored 7 straight points to pull within 1 at 13-12. A free throw by Kaylee Uhlenkott and a2 by Schaeffer put the lead back at 4 but a pair of 3-pointers by Troy against a basket but Nida left the score tied at halftime.  In
the third quarter Prairie couldn’t score from the field for the first 3:34
of the quarter but they did manage to convert 5 free throws, 2 each by
Nida and Meghan VanderPas and 1 by Gehring, to take a 23-18 lead. Schaeffer
hit the first field goal of the quarter on a feed from Enneking to make
it 25-18.
Troy then scored but Prairie then scored 5 more points on a putback by Gehring and a free throw and basket by Tabitha Sonnen for a 30-20 lead with 1:58 left in the quarter. Troy scored the final 3 points of the third to cut the lead to 7 and then score the first 3 of the fourth quarter to pull back within 4 at 30-26 with 7:25 left. Prairie then finally took control as they outscored the Trojans 18-4 the rest of the way starting with a 10-0 run. They held Troy scoreless for nearly 5 minutes and the Trojans didn’t score a field goal in the final 7:25 as they were limited to just 4 free throws. Nida and Schaeffer scored 12 points each to lead the Pirates with Gehring scoring 8, VanderPas 6, Sonnen 3, Enneking, Arnzen and Kara Guyer 2 each and Uhlenkott 1. Rebounding was even at 37 each with Schaeffer leading Prairie with 11 rebounds. Gehring had 7 and Arnzen and VanderPas had 5 each. Prairie’s defense forced 35 turnovers, 20 by way of steals. Nida had 8 steals to lead the team with Schaeffer collecting 5 steals. Enneking had 4 assists while Nida had 3. Prairie was 16 for 56 from the field, 29%, and 14 for 22 at the line while Troy was 9 for 27 from the field, 33%, and 10 for 26 at the line. Prairie 8 10 12 18 -48 Troy 5 13 5 7 -30 Prairie-Nida 3-11, 4-6, 12; Enneking 1-4, 0-1, 2; T. Schaeffer 5-12, 2-3, 12; Gehring 2-8, 4-6, 8; Uhlenkott 0-6, 1-2, 1; VanderPas 2-6, 2-2, 6; Arnzen 1-5, 0-0, 2; Sonnen 1-1, 1-2, 3; Schumacher 0-0, 0-0, 0; Uhlorn 0-1, 0-0, 0; K. Schaeffer 0-0, 0-0, 0; Boniecki 0-0, 0-0, 0; Poxleitner 0-0, 0-0, 0; Guyer 1-2, 0-0, 2; Lerandeau 0-0, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Nida 2. Troy-Kanikkeberg 1-8, 4-8, 7; Symonds 1-6, 4-8, 6; Iverson 1-2, 0-0, 3; Jensen 2-3, 2-2, 6; Howe 1-2, 0-4, 2; Bafus 0-0, 0-0, 0; Case 2-5, 0-4, 4; McGraw 0-0, 0-0, 0; Cannon 1-1, 0-0, 2. 3-pointers-Kannikeberg, Iverson. Nida's shot sends Prairie to State Nicole Nida’s 3-pointer from the corner with 4 seconds left broke a 41-all tie and send the Prairie Lady Pirates to the state tournament, 44-41 over Clearwater Valley in the third place game at district Saturday, Feb. 10 at Lewiston. Prairie had taken a 6 point lead early in the fourth quarter only to see C.V. come roaring back with a 2-11 run to take a 3-point lead with 3:21 left. Prairie came back to twice take a 1-point lead only to have C.V. tie with a free throw each time. 
The last tie came with 18 seconds left when C.V.’s Lizzy Vafiades made the first of 2 free throws to tie the score at 41. Kaylee Uhlenkott rebounded the second one and Prairie called timeout. The ball was inbounded and passed to Jennifer Enneking who dribbled through C.V.’s press down the sideline. She passed it to Nida in the right corner. Nida took a glance at the clock and then let fly. The ball didn’t even catch iron as it went through. C.V.’s players were so stunned that they couldn’t even get a desperation shot off before the buzzer sounded. Prairie had started the game ice-cold as they missed their first 11 shots of the game before Nida stole the ball and drove for a lay-up with 2:29 left in the opening period. Their defense kept them in the game though as C.V. was up only 4-3 after that shot. The Rams then scored a pair of baskets before Tiffany Schaeffer connected on a 3-pointer. C.V. added another basket in the final seconds for a 6-10 lead at the end of the quarter. They made it 6-12 early in the second but Prairie came back with a driving lay-up by Uhlenkott and a 3 point play by Tabitha Sonnen who was fouled on her driving lay-up. C.V. then pushed the lead back to 4 at 12-16 with 3:47 left in the half. Meghan VanderPas cut the lead to 1 when she scored a lay-up on an inbounds play and was fouled. Uhlenkott then forced a turnover with a jump ball on the C.V. end and that led to a basket by VanderPas that gave Prairie their first lead of the game at 17-16 with 1:51 left in the half. C.V. answered with a putback but Enneking gave Prairie the lead at the half with a shot from just inside the 3-point arc with 1:04 left to make it 19-18. C.V. got the ball to start the second half but turned the ball over and that led to a 3-pointer by Schaeffer to give Prairie a 22-18 lead. The rest of the quarter saw the teams trade points as Prairie took a 4-point lead 4 times only to have C.V. answer back with either a basket or 2 free throws each time to cut the lead to 2. It was 28-26 with 8 seconds left when Prairie inbounded the ball from the sideline to Schaeffer. She must have misread the clock as she launched a 3-pointer from about 22 feet out with 5 seconds left that gave Prairie a 31-26 lead heading into the fourth. C.V. opened the fourth quarter scoring with a basket to cut the lead to 3 but Nida connected on a 3-pointer to give Prairie their biggest lead of the game at 34-28 with 7:04 left. C.V. then started their rally that set things up for the end of the game. They scored 8 straight on a free throw, 3-pointer and 2 baskets to take the lead at 34-36 with 4:21 left.  Sarah
Arnzen connected from the perimeter to tie the game at 36 with 4:05 to
play.
C.V. then scored 3 free throws to take a 36-39 lead with 1:50 left. The 4th attempt missed and Enneking got the rebound and was fouled. She converted both ends of the 1 and 1 to pull the Pirates back within 1 at 38-39. Neither team scored for nearly a minute with Uhlenkott putting Prairie ahead with a putback with 52 seconds left. C.V.’s Janae Palmer was fouled 4 seconds later and the free throw shooting heroine of C.V.’s upset of Kendrick the night before drained the first of her high-arcing shots to tie the score. The second missed and Uhlenkott rebounded. That eventually led to a drive to the hoop by Nida who got fouled. With 34 seconds left she missed the first but made the second shot to make it 41-40. Then came the final action described earlier. Nida wound up with 16 points to lead all scorers. Schaeffer added 9 points, all on 3-pointers, while VanderPas scored 5, Enneking and Uhlenkott 4 each, Sonnen 3, Arnzen 2 and Becky Gehring 1. Each team had 33 rebounds with Prairie outrebounding C.V. 18-14 in the second half. Nida had 7 to lead Prairie with Gehring having 6 and Uhlenkott and Sonnen having 5 each. Despite the full-court pressure defense played by both sides there were relatively few turnovers as C.V. had 18 and Prairie 15. Uhlenkott had 2 steals to lead Prairie while Uhlenkott, Enneking and VanderPas had 2 assists each. Prairie was 15 for 49 from the field, 31%, and 9 for 17 at the line. C.V. was 13 for 33 from the field, 39%, and 14 for 24 at the line. Prairie takes a 15-9 record into the state tournament where they will face District 3 champion Garden Valley, 18-1, in their opener at 6:15 MST Wednesday, Feb. 14 at Nampa’s Columbia High School. Prairie 6 13 12 13 -44 C.V. 10 8 8 15 -41 Prairie-Nida 5-11, 4-6, 16; Enneking 1-5, 2-2, 4; Schaeffer 3-13, 0-0, 9; Gehring 0-4, 1-2, 1; Uhlenkott 2-4, 0-4, 4; VanderPas 2-2, 1-2, 5; Sonnen 1-8, 1-1, 3; Arnzen 1-2, 0-0, 2; Uhlorn 0-1, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Schaeffer 3, Nida 2. C.V.-Vafiades 1-4, 1-2, 3; Palmer 4-4, 1-3, 10; Lytle 3-9, 6-8, 12; Roberts 1-3, 1-2, 3; Pickering 4-12, 5-9, 13; Johnson 0-1, 0-0, 0; Mefford 0-0, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Palmer. PIRATES GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE FOR 2006-07 JV games start at 6 p.m., varsity to follow unless indicated. *indicates league game FEBRUARY 15-17-State continues at Nampa. 
The state bracket, also found at IdahoSports.com, which along with idhsaa.org will have results and stats from the games. |
 |
