Playoff Hopes End With Loss To YVCC

Currently on a 4 game losing streak, the Lady Vikes needed to get back on track to keep their playoff hopes alive. In their way stood the Yakima Valley Yaks who came to town on Wednesday February 21st. After defeating the Yaks at their place, BBCC had high hopes that this would be the game to snap the four game skid. 

The Lady Vikes came out firing in the first quarter shooting 47% from the floor led by Katie Hansen with 5 points while knocking down her only three point attempt. The Yakima offense came to play shooting 54% from the floor in the first ten minutes resulting in a Yak lead after the first frame with a score of 18-17.

Both offenses cooled off in the second quarter with the Yaks shooting 31% and the Lady Vikes shooting 29% from the floor. Aquinna Riggles was the spark plug on defense for BBCC collecting 3 steals and 1 block throughout the second quarter. After 20 minutes of play Big Bend found themselves down three going into the break. Head Coach Preston Wilks had this to say regarding the first half. 

"Tonight we really wanted to bounce back from a string of 4 losses. We felt so good going into this matchup, especially since we beat them at their place. We had a good first half and were only down 3 points and our spirits were high at the half, considering they were shooting 50% from the 3 point land in the 1^st half. We felt like they'd cool off and we'd be in great shape."

The third quarter has been the achilles heel for the Lady Vikes this season, but not tonight. BBCC managed to take the lead during the third quarter led by Matty Woolf who dropped 8 points in 8 minutes, but Yakima was not finished as they retook the lead going into the final frame up by 6 points.

Unfortunately, the fourth quarter was all Yakima as BBCC struggled heavily from the floor shooting 19% on 4-21 shooting while the Yaks managed to knock down 44% of their shots resulting in a 19 point defeat for the Lady Vikings with a final score of 80-61. Katie Hansen led the Lady Vikes in scoring with 11 points and 7 rebounds while Riley Layton and Aquinna Riggles fueled the defense with 4 steals a piece in the loss. Wilks highlighted the highs and lows of the second half stating.

"We have had slow starts the past 3 games to start the 3^rd quarter and the 3^rd has been our demise in those games. We did a great job and really felt good when we took the lead half-way through the 3^rd at a score of 46-45. We really thought that was it, that we climbed that pesky hill that had plagued us so bad the past 3 games. But then Yakima got hot and combined with a string of costly turnovers we made which that led to easy scores for them, then all of the sudden we were on the back-end of a 20-4 run by Yakima and found ourselves in a hole too big to recover from.'

After being eliminated from playoff contention Wilks had this to say regarding the teams outlook on their final two conference games.

"We now are down to 2 games remaining and the ladies talked about playing for each other, playing with a sense of pride and finishing-out the season strong in spite of being eliminated from the post-season."

The Lady Vikes hit the road this Saturday to face off versus the Walla Walla Warriors to play their final road game of the season. 

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