Washington girls suffer first loss

WASHINGTON — In recent years, Pella has been a thorn in the side of Washington in girls basketball.

Between the Demons and Dutch’s last two meetings, Pella has outscored the Demons 124-30.

On Tuesday night the two teams met once again, but this time around the Demons showed just how much they’ve improved. Washington gave Pella its all, but fell to the Dutch 51-41.

Washington played well on the defensive end in the Tuesday night contest, but a slow first quarter of putting the ball in the basket ended up being the difference maker.

Pella opened up the scoring in the matchup early, but Washington was quick to answer back with back-to-back shots from Alex Murphy to put them up 4-2 with just over five minutes to go in the first.

That would prove to be the Demons largest and only lead of the night, along with the last of their point in the first quarter.

From that point on, Pella would go on a 13-0 run until the end of the first quarter, giving them a 15-4 lead after one.

The rest of the way out, it was neck and neck, but Washington was never able to make up the difference from the first quarter.

Washington opened the second with a 6-2 run to cut the Dutch lead to seven, 17-10, but Pella always had an answer.

Pella connected on a three to put itself back up by 10, 20-10 and then went up by 12 on a layup, 22-11, after a three throw by the Demons Kendall Hinrichsen.

Washington was able to get Pella into foul trouble and it led to seven points from the stripe in the second quarter.

The Demons were able to make it an eight point game off a Lauren Hinrichsen two at 23-15 and again, 25-17, from back-to-back free throws from Leighton Messinger and Iris Peterson.

Pella extended its lead though in the final 40 seconds of the quarter on a free throw and a pair of lay-ins, one of which was with 10 seconds to go.

At the half, Washington trailed 30-17.

In the third, Washington once again opened the scoring with a pair of two’s from Murphy and Messinger, making it 30-21 in favor of the Dutch.

The Demons did well to limit Pella from finding a basket, not letting them score until the 2:55 mark in the quarter.

But the Demons struggled after the opening buckets as well, not scoring again until there was 1:22 on the clock.

In the final three minutes of the quarter, Washington was outscored 10-4, putting Pella up 40-25 heading into the fourth.

Through the fourth, both teams scored six each through the midway point of the quarter, with Pella leading 49-31.

Washington was able to find a nice scoring rhythm late, outscoring the Dutch 10-2 in the finals three minutes. The Demons just ran out of time.

“We didn’t play as good as we wanted to in the first half and part of that was them,” Washington head coach Shannon Rugg said. “I though we came out and did a good job of cutting into it. In years past, I think we would have struggled to do that, but we just kept competing. That’s something we talk about. We just gotta lay it all out there and this groups doing that.”

Murphy led Washington with eight points in the loss. Messinger followed with seven.

Washington will be back at it on Friday against Burlington on the road.