Wildcats win District crown

DAYTON - The Colton Wildcats girls basketball team withstood a competitive Yakama Nation Tribal Eagles team to win 46-40 and secure a 1B District 9 title and a top-seed in the upcoming WIAA 1B state basketball tournament.

Colton had played Yakama Nation Tribal earlier in the season, winning 60-23 on Dec. 17.

If there was any expectation that the game on Feb. 17 would be a repeat of December, those expectations were quickly erased.

The Eagles started with a 6-0 advantage over the Wildcats, before back-to-back 3-pointers from Kyndra Stout and Grace Kuhle tied the game at six apiece with 4:26 to go in the opening quarter. Both teams struggled to find an advantage over the other for the remaining time in the first quarter. Going into the second, it was Yakama Nation Tribal with the slim 13-12 lead.

Holly Heitstuman would quickly erase that advantage, giving Colton a 15-13 lead after making a 3-pointer. Holly would pick up a lot of the scoring and defensive slack left by Kaydee Heitstuman, who was out of the game with a knee injury.

Both teams, like a few of the teams from earlier in the tournament, would spend much of the second quarter tying the game and taking narrow leads. After Yakama Nation Tribal tied the game at 17, Colton would start to distance itself, going on a 9-2 run to take a 26-19 lead with 1:58 to go in the half. The Eagles would respond with a 5-1 run of their own, going into halftime down 27-24.

The third quarter was less competitive than the previous two, with the Wildcats outscoring their opponents 12-7 to go into the final eight minutes of regulation up 39-31.

Yakama Nation Tribal outscored Colton 7-0 to begin the final quarter, pulling to within 39-38 with 5:41 left in the game. This would be the closest the Lady Eagles would get and the Wildcats closed out the game with a 7-2 run to walk out of Dayton with the six-point win.

"We knew it was going to be a tough game," Colton head coach Clark Vining said. "I mean, (Yakama Nation's) a quality team, or they wouldn't be in the championship. I thought early in the game, they were beating us on the boards pretty bad. They had six second-chance points in the first quarter. Which really kind of led to their first quarter lead. I thought as the game went on we kind of tightened that up a little bit more, kind of relaxed a little bit, I thought we came out a little bit tight. Kind of did some things we don't normally do on offense and defense."

This particular District tournament has been a milestone one for the Wildcats, not only capping off a season in which Colton only had one overall loss and was undefeated in league competition, but also a tournament that saw Vining celebrate his 400th career win at the helm of the school's girls basketball program.

"It's been a great season," Vining said. "I think our team really came a long ways from back in June where we kind of started this season to November to now. The progress we made has been really fun to see. Just a great bunch of kids that work hard and get better every day, and that's what it takes to be good."

Stout led Colton with 19 points, 15 of them coming from 3-point range. Grace Kuhle also added 10 for the Wildcats in the win.

Yakama Nation Tribal was led with 17 points from Gwen Dawes.

The Colton girls basketball team will open the Regional round of the 1B State Tournament at 8 p.m., Feb. 25, against Moses Lake Christian Academy at Cheney High School in Cheney.

YAKAMA NATION TRIBAL (19-4, 7-2)

Kaydance Visaya 2 0-0 4, Amber Onepennee 2 0-1 5, Lucretia Andy 0 0-0 0, Ayana Sampson 0 1-2 1, Julia George 3 0-0 6, Gwen Dawes 5 6-7 17, Beth ScabbyRobe 3 1-2 7. Totals 15 8-17 40.

COLTON (20-1, 11-0)

Grace Kuhle 4 0-0 10, Holly Heitstuman 2 1-4 7, Kyndra Stout 5 4-4 19, Nollmeyer 0 0-0 0, Moehlre 3 0-0 6, Whitcomb 1 2-3 4. Totals 15 7-11 46.

3-point goals – Onepennee, Dawes, Stout 5, Kuhle 2, Heitstuman 2.