Like dominoes, the girls’ teams from the West 2-A region fell in succession all day Thursday at Casper College. Top seeded Rocky Mountain was handled surprisingly easily by fourth-seeded Burns 45-30 and that set the tone for the rest of the opening day action.
Shoshoni and Kemmerer fell to Lingle-Ft. Laramie and Sundance, leaving the Lady Chiefs as the best hope for a West breakthrough, it didn’t happen.
Third-seeded Tongue River handed the Chiefs a 72-70 opening round loss behind second, third, and fourth shots in a dominating display of rebounding. Tongue River finished the game with a 42-27 advantage in rebounding.
“We didn’t block out, and they just killed us on the boards,” Wyoming Indian head coach Aleta Moss said.
Despite the disparity on the glass, the lead changed six times and there were an equal number of ties in the first half and early third period.
The Lady Eagles broke open the game two minutes into the second half on a 12-5 flurry that gave Tongue River their largest lead of the game 44-31.
As all fans of the Lady Chiefs know, as long as there is time on the clock, there is hope and the girls responded with a rally of their own to close the gap, but rebounding remained an issue.
A final surge behind outstanding play by Shye Killsontop and Taya Dixey brought Wyoming Indian close, but it wasn’t enough to retake the lead.
Killsontop was impressive all over the floor offensive, but especially so from beyond the arc where she hit five 3-point shots. She finished with a game high 27 points. Dixey had the other three Wyoming Indian treys and tallied 16.
The Lady Chiefs have a familiar consolation semi-final opponent in the Lady Blue of Shoshoni.
They play each other one final time this season at 10:30 am at the Ford Wyoming Center in an elimination game.
Wyoming Indian 14 12 20 24 – 70
Tongue River 16 16 22 18 – 72
Wyoming Indian – Roberta Whiteplume 1 0-0 2, Layla C’Bearing 1 3-6 5, Deja Felter 1 0-0 2, Taya Dixey 2 (3) 3-5 16, Elianna Duran 2 2-4 6, Maggie Smith 3 2-2 8, Shye Killsontop 3 (5) 6-8 27, Camillia Brown 2 0-0 4. Totals 15 (8) 16-27 70
Tongue River – Madison Burnett 1 (1) 2-2 7, Jazlyn Ryan 4 (1) 0-2 11, Tyla Pittman 2 2-3 6, Chaney Reish 3 (1) 5-6 14, McKinlee Scammon 2 (2) 5-8 15, Autumn White 2 (1) 4-4 11, Paxton Aksamit 1 4-4 6, Faith Whiteheat 1 0-0 2. Totals 16 (6) 22-29 72
Rebounding TR 42 -27