The W.F. West girls basketball team did not play the perfect game Tuesday at home against White River. Far from it.
The Bearcats don’t care.
W.F. West slogged through the start, looked shaky in the second, and took their time to find their offense, but fired things up in the second half to come back and take down the defending 2A South Puget Sound League champs 48-40.
And this early in the season, with just one returning starter and a whole lot of sophomores, coach Kyle Karnofksi may almost prefer it that way, even if his blood pressure might disagree.
“That was cool,” he said. “We did this game on purpose with White River. They’re a good team, that’s a heck of a coach, they run their stuff, they play super hard, they’re tough. And we did that on purpose to help see where we’re at, and to really gauge what we need to work on as a team, and what we need to do throughout the season. It sets the tone for who we are.”
The Bearcats went into halftime down by seven points, after scoring just two in the entire second quarter. But Julia Dalan — who was near-silent on the offensive side of the ball for the first 16 minutes — started to get going in the third, and that sparked the rest of the team, even when she went out with her fourth foul with two minutes left in the quarter.
Without the dominating presence in the post, W.F. West turned to its guards. Carlie Deskins hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to one point, and after White River stretched it back to three, Morgan Rogerson came right back with a layup in transition. Then, with the clock winding down, Lena Fragner stepped into a long jumper, made it, and drew contact for a three-point play, giving the Bearcats all the momentum heading into the final period.
“It’s all confidence, and that’s what we talked about,” Karnofski said. “Collectively, we’ve struggled at times shooting the ball, and it’s just a confidence thing.”
Playing with that confidence — and the lead for the first time since the 6:26 mark in the second quarter — the Bearcats saw things out with a defensive masterpiece in the fourth quarter, holding the Hornets to four points to end the game on an 18-6 run.
Dalan finished with a team-high 13 points and 12 rebounds. With the Hornets swarming to her, W.F. West struggled to get her the ball early, and she struggled to make contested shots when it could. But coming out of halftime, Karnofski drew up plays for her on three straight possessions, leading to seven points for her in less than three minutes.
She went on to score 11 of her points in the third, when W.F. West went off for 23.
“Julia’s the type of kid that can get a couple here and there, and they’re quiet because they’re the ‘easy’ shots, or they’re close to the hoop,” Karnofski said. “But she’s somebody who can fill it up quick if you let her get going. And once she does, she’s a good basketball player.”
In her absence early, Deskins led the Bearcats with their first five points in the first quarter, and finished with 10. But in the second quarter, the well dried up completely, with the hosts failing to find the basket from the floor. At the same time, W.F. West turned the ball over 16 times in the opening 16 minutes, many of which had more to do with mental mistakes than the White River defense.
But after a halftime to gather itself, W.F. West found its stride. It took six minutes in the third quarter to double its point total from the first two quarters, and it didn’t look back.
Fragner added 12 points, and Rogerson put in 11 for a balanced effort from a pack of Bearcats new to the moment.
Amanda Bennett, who only scored two points, pitched in six rebounds to finish second on the team.
“A lot of these girls had never been in that situation,”Karnofski said. “That’s what we talked about (at halftime). We don’t have the team that’s been in those big games before. We have players who have seen those situations, or partially been in there, but never in those roles. Lena Fragner’s never been in that role, and she was a dawg tonight. Morgan Rogerson has played in that role, but she gutted it out tonight. We haven’t played in those situations.”
Now, the Bearcats have, and they’ll take that experience going forward into a schedule that’s not going to get much easier. W.F. West (5-0, 2-0 2A EvCo) will go back to league play briefly, taking on Black Hills on the road Thursday.
