The West Greene girls put everything together in the fourth quarter on Monday night to swing in front of Cherokee before collecting a 46-39 win.
“They did a great job in the fourth quarter, and they did a great job of executing what we were trying to do at the end,” West Greene coach Betsy Shaw said. “Everything got better in the fourth quarter. Offensively we got more consistency and defensively we switched some things up that made a big difference.”
Monday’s game went back and forth for the first three quarters and neither team led by more than three points for more than 40 seconds. But the Lady Buffaloes went to the fourth quarter trailing 31-30.
In the fourth quarter West Greene began to take care of the ball better and on defense they shut down the Lady Chiefs early to quickly swing the lead. Two free throws by Joie Shipley put West Greene in front and then Shipley came down the baseline for a lay in that made the score 34-31.
Cherokee cut the lead down to one point when Brooke Nelson got ahead of the defense in transition. West Greene answered with six straight points. First Morgan Brown hit a cutting Emily Justis for a layup, and then Katelyn Begines used a steal to set up Justis for two more points.
With 4:20 left to play Payton Norton made one of two at the free throw line to give West Greene a 40-33 lead. It was the first time either team had a three-possession lead.
From there West Greene slowed the game down and Cherokee could not make enough shots to swing back in front.
Friday’s action started with the teams trading points, but both defenses held the upper hand. A three-pointer by Nelson put Cherokee in front 7-5. West Greene took a 9-7 lead when Brown sank a jump shot from the left wing. The shot also gave Brown the 1,000th point of her Lady Buffalo career.
Brown led West Greene on Monday with 14 points, but more than that she directed both the offense and defense for the Lady Buffaloes.
“Morgan is our leader and she always controls on the court for us. I was glad that she was able to get her 1,000th point here at home tonight,” Shaw said.
The first quarter ended with the game tied at 9-9.
In the second quarter West Greene struggled to get shots to fall, but they got into the lane and drew contact to get to the free throw line which kept the score even at 13-13 at the midway point of the period.
Brown put West Greene in front at 15-13 when she jumped a pass on the defensive end of the floor and took it the other way with 2:54 left in the first half.
With 19 seconds remaining Cherokee took its biggest lead of the first half at 18-15 when Nelson sank a triple from the right wing. West Greene had time to answer and just before the buzzer Payton Norton knocked down a corner three to even the score at 18-17.
Another three-pointer by Norton early in the third quarter allowed West Greene to play from in front again.
Cherokee regained the lead with 4:08 left in the period when Addie Lawson drove to the rim for two points. Lawson made a pair of free throws to put the Lady Chiefs in front 31-27, that was their biggest lead of the day.
Justis answered with a jumper from the short corner and Brown finished the quarter with a free throw that closed the gap to 31-30.
Justis also scored 14 points on Monday for West Greene. For Cherokee Nelson scored 15 points and Lawson had 10 points.
