The Lone Tree girls and WACO boys each finished off a season sweep Tuesday, with Lone Tree defeating WACO 55-37 and WACO defeating Lone Tree 72-47.
At first, the girls’ contest was a competitive, back-and-forth affair. Although there was only one lead change, and just one tie past the initial tip, the WACO girls kept Lone Tree within striking distance. Every time it seemed the Lions would start to pull away, the Warriors managed to find a string of buckets to make things competitive once more. At the half, Lone Tree held a slim 25-22 lead.
Things changed in the second half. The Lions got off to a good start, finding multiple stops on defense and beginning to control the game offensively. A scoring spree from Lion guards Finley Jacque and Ava Christofferson allowed Lone Tree to place pressure on the Warriors, who weren’t able to respond in any meaningful way. After an 18-8 third quarter, Lone Tree took the fourth quarter as well, cruising to a 55-37 victory.
Jacque led the Lions with 21 points, but Christofferson was right behind her at 17. WACO was led by Courtney Waterhouse, whose three three-pointers led to her to 9 points for the game.
Lone Tree head coach Ryan Shelman says the girls executed in all facets of the game, “We talk a lot about getting three stops and then three scores. And there was a couple stretches where that happened for us and we were able to kinda pull away there in that third quarter. And like you said, we did a lot of good things in the fourth quarter too. I just really thought in that second half, it started with the rebounding. But we did a good job of taking care of the basketball, we did a good job of getting points in the paint, which is another thing we emphasize. Really proud of our team, whether it was on offensive putbacks, executing on offense, running our stuff, but also just playing together and communicating out on the floor. And it was fun to see our girls having fun tonight.”
Lone Tree improves to 11-6 and 9-4 in the SEISC-North. WACO falls to 7-8 and 4-8 in conference play.
The boys headed out to the floor looking to settle the score, with WACO squeaking out a 56-53 win in the first meeting between the two teams this season. On this night, it wouldn’t come nearly as close as that. Despite both teams having an issue with slow starts this season, it was WACO who burst out of the gate, taking a 23-10 lead after just one quarter. The Warriors wouldn’t reach quite the same scoring heights as that first eight minutes, but the team did plenty to keep the lead steady, with Holden Hughes and Kellen Shelman leading the charge. An even 10-10 second quarter took the two teams into the half at 33-20.
In the first meeting between the Lions and Warriors, Lone Tree was able to make a sizable comeback to at least threaten WACO, despite going down by a huge margin early on. And with WACO taking another big lead, it felt like the stage was set for another comeback. For a time, it looked like Lone Tree was on the right path, with a 20-point lead being cut to 12 midway through the third. But unfortunately for the Lions, that’s as close as they’d get. Hughes and Shelman picked up their pace once more, and WACO ended the night with their largest lead of the game at 25 points, 72-47.
Hughes finished with 27 points, with all but one point coming from inside the paint. Shelman had 18. Lone Tree’s Domonic Garcia continued his good run of form, leading the Lions with 17.
WACO head coach Chayse Roth says getting out to a good start is crucial for his team, “We came out, and that was the best start we’ve had in quite a while. We’ve kind of struggled in the first quarter the last few weeks. We’ve challenged the kids, that’s something we’ve worked on in practice. We gotta, as soon as we start practice we’re coming out, we’re starting with energy, we gotta have a lot of effort and tonight we did a really good job of coming out and putting the ball in the basket and knowing where we need to get the ball, and that helped us.
WACO improves to 8-6, and 8-3 in the SEISC-North. Lone Tree drops to 4-11 and 2-10 in conference.