Cold 4th Quarter in February
Goessel Varsity Girls Basketball - v. Centre @ Goessel February 5, 2019
On State of the Union and KU/KSU night, Goessel’s Bluebirds went head to head with cross-county rival Centre at home. Tonight’s contest never seemed to gain rhythm as the teams put up 60 free throws between them in a closely officiated game. It seemed at one point with the volume of whistles that the teams would be going 3 on 3 as time waned. Goessel stormed out to a 8-2 lead with punches in to Stephany Meyer, but Centre closed up their defense and got #11 in foul trouble. Goessel led 29-26 after three but went ice cold in the 4th quarter with only one field goal and 3 for 9 shooting from the line to let this one slip away 34-43. Liz Alderfer pulled down 17 boards for one of the biggest rebounding nights any Lady Bluebird has ever had.
Centre carries no Seniors on its lean bench, but Junior ball-handler Kelsey Hett gave the Bluebirds fits in transition. The Espinozas also splashed in several key buckets in a balanced scoring attack for the visitors. Meyer coasted in several nice finishes to start to lead 8-2, but the Cougars roared back in it to close the quarter 8-8.
Haley O’Neal lofted a great over the top shot to Meyer to go up 10-8 and then hit back to back charities. Porclein Unruh got to the line and also hit 1 of 2 and at the 4 minute mark Liz Alderfer pulled a giant board, went back up, was fouled and stroked both charities to lead 15-12. Unruh scored on the follow to lead 16-14 but Hett took over to close the half with two big finishes to lead 16-20 at the break.
Goessel was shooting great from the line at 8 for 11 but sent the Cougars to the line for 15 attempts. Out of the halftime break, the Bluebirds looked ready to put things away, coming back from a 16-23 deficit to close on a coast to run and slalom finish from Meyer and two absolutely sensational corner threes from Madi Smith. A moment later, O’Neal tied it back up with foul #4 on Hett at 2:57, who had to sit the rest of the quarter. Disaster struck at 1:57 as Meyer was also whistled for her 4th with 1:37 remaining and also had to sit. Liz Schmucker ignited the crowd with a huge trey from east of K-15 to regain the lead 29-26 during the Meyer/Hett hiatus and the huge 13-6 quarter ended 29-26 with Goessel on a roll.
With Meyer and Hett still out, the two teams dueled to a draw and it was still 29-28 after an Espinoza push into the paint. At 6:28 Coach Stahlecher made a key move, putting Hett back in and her ball-handling skills played big in the remainder of the game. Unruh put Goessel up 30-28 with a charity and the two teams wrangled back and forth at the line for the remainder of the game. At 5:30 Espinoza hit a dagger three to lead 30-33, but Unruh answered on a great feed from Smith. On charities, the Cougars took it to 32-36 before Unruh hit one more FT to stay at 33-36. Stephany fouled out at 3:10 and Liz at 0:39. Centre’s Espinoza amazingly was the only Cougar to foul out at 1:50. The Cougars then proceeded to put it away with 7 for 8 shooting from the charity stripe to win 34-43. Goessel went totally cold from the field with only one FG in the 4th and could only muster 3 for 9 from the line in the closing minutes.
Meyer finished with 11 and pulled down 10 boards, a double double. Madi Smith was able to finesse two incredible threes tonight and finished with 7, Porclein Unruh got to the line and went 4 for 8 with the only FG in the 4th to score 6, and Haley O’Neal had a fine night at the line going 4 for 5. Liz Schmucker scored 3 and Liz Alderfer went 3 for 4 from the line to round out the Bluebird scoring. Liz Alderfer pulled down a world-class 17 rebounds in a huge effort night on the boards. Also in were: Raechel Boese, Kaleigh Guhr, Rebecca Sawyer, and Bethany Herrel.
-Karl Brubaker
