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Washington Evening Journal
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WACO falls just short
Warriors storm back, can’t finish in Game 1
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WAYLAND — The WACO girls basketball team showed a lot of grit on night one of Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division girls basketball, but it unfortunately didn’t turn into a tally on the win column.
With Wapello leading for most of the night, Warriors came back from a 25-18 halftime deficit to take the lead in the fourth quarter, but the Arrows closed the game out late to hand WACO an opening-night defeat, 49-46.
After getting all the way back within one, trailing 34-33 after three quarters, the Warriors used pressure defense to grab the lead in the fourth, but that same pressure defense led to a couple of fastbreak opportunities in the final two minutes for Wapello, which turned a tie game with one minute left into a 3-point victory.
“I think I could have done a better job of rotating out of our defense at the end of the game,” said WACO head coach Mitch Drey. “We were getting some steals from the press, but then Wapello did a really good job, and credit to them, at exploiting that and getting some easy baskets.”
The Warriors had a balanced attack all night. Carlee Lundsford led the team with 11 points. Drew Graber had 10. Courtney Waterhouse had nine, on three made 3-pointers. Madelyn Farmer and Brenna Graber scored eight each, and Ava Wagler finished with one.
In other North Division action, Highland topped Lone Tree 50-29, and Louisa-Muscatine beat Columbus 62-48.
