Lady Hawks trumped by Royals

  • By Kevin Lynch
  • February 11, 2010
  • 578
                        
The Lady Hawks were unable to hold an early lead against state power Regina when the Royals brought their high-powered program to Berlin for a date with another top team in the state. In the end, Regina pulled out the win, 60-65. The reigning Division III State champion Royals struggled from the floor early on as Hiland jumped out to a 5-0 lead on a 3-pointer from Jessica Stutzman and a layup by Noelle Yoder. Yoder, who had missed two weeks of action with a injured knee, made her presence felt right away, as she bombed in four first-half 3-pointers as Hiland built a 34-25 lead at the half. The senior scored the final five points of the first quarter to give Hiland a 21-18 lead after one. Another 3-pointer by Yoder early in the third quarter gave the Lady Hawks a 41-27 lead. Regina responded like the champions the Royals are, closing the quarter on a 16-7 run to trim Hiland’s lead to five, 48-43 after three. Yoder opened the fourth quarter with a pair of free throws, but was shut out the rest of the way as the one-two punch of Nirra Fields and Tay’ler Mingo mounted a fierce comeback that saw Royals storm ahead by five midway through the final frame. Fields finished with 31 points, scoring from everywhere on the floor. The sophomore dropped in three 3-pointers to go with several mid-range jumpers and a stickback or three. “We’re a championship team and we showed that in the second half,” Regina coach Pat Diulus said. “We haven’t been down 14 points in about five years. Our kids showed what they needed to show, and I think the full-court pressure finally got them. We kept Yoder down in the second half. She killed us in the first half.” Yoder finished with 27 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field, including four-of-seven from 3-point range. “They did a nice job of shutting down Noelle in the fourth quarter,” Hiland coach Dave Schlabach said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get her the basketball. We’ll learn a lot from this game. It still came down to if we defend and rebound, and execute late, we could leave here feeling really good. “When the game got tied or close, Mingo is so good, they brought us out and we weren’t able to take away penetration. We had to come get them, a little bit,” he added. “That’s a big challenge there, but it’s one we were up for. Noelle had a phenomenal three quarters.” But after three quarters, Schlabach felt like he was back in Columbus in last year’s State championship game. “We were sitting there with a 12-point lead. It was similar to Africentric last year,” Schlabach said. “We have to have the ability to finish. We’re not willing to walk out of here feeling good about ourselves because we battled them. We’re not going to let ourselves off the hook. “Our intention was to win tonight, and our kids came ready to do that and played hard enough to do that, but we just didn’t finish,” he added. “Especially at the defensive end. We allowed too many second-chance points. “We didn’t take care of the basketball,” Schlabach said. “That’s execution. Our inability to stop those runs and put people away; unless we bring this out in the open and talk about it, you’re never going to figure out how to handle it.” Yoder was the lone player to reach double digits for the Lady Hawks. Hilary Weaver, Stutzman and McKenzie Miller scored seven points apiece, and Katelyn Stuckey added five points. Regan Miller rounded out the scoring with three points. Mingo pumped in 13 for the Royals after being shut out in the first half. Both teams have records of 15-2 after the battle.


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