Lady Spartans have no answers for Wilmington
By JON GERAMITA
jgeramita@ncnewsonline.com

Laurel coach Jennifer McGarrah pleaded, begged and all but ran on the court to give her team a spark.

Nothing worked.

Trailing Wilmington by 40-34 in the fourth quarter during the Union Boosters girls basketball tournament semifinals last night, the Lady Spartans coach implored her team during a timeout.

Soon after her passionate plea to “Make something happen,” her team came up with three steals in a row, but none of them resulted in points.

In fact, Laurel didn’t make a shot the rest of the game and fell, 50-36, to the Lady Greyhounds.

Wilmington (4-5) will play at 6 p.m. tomorrow for the tournament championship against the winner of tonight’s Moniteau-Union game. Laurel will play in the consolation game at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

With both Wilmington and Laurel playing zone defense and not shooting well, the outcome was going to be decided on which team would hit the first big shot and which would rebound all those misses the best.

Big edge to Wilmington on both.

Leading 31-27 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, Wilmington guard Shannon Garrett banked in a 3-pointer from the right wing to give her team some breathing room.

Minutes later, after the Lady Spartans cut it to 37-32, Wilmington’s Janelle Fauzey hit a three from the left wing.

“She’s been hot lately,” Lady ’Hounds coach Brian Turk said of Fauzey, who had a game-high 22 points.

Laurel (4-5) had plenty of opportunities to make things close down the stretch, but simply went ice cold.

Nicolette McCormick’s three went in ... and out. Kerri Hutchison missed twice from long-range. McCormick missed again. Kasie Brown missed inside.

And there was a blue-and-gold jersey to grab every one of those misses.
Wilmington’s Kara Kendall scored 15 points (all inside or on foul shots) and grabbed 11 rebounds. She was joined by teammates Leah Day (11 rebounds) and Brooke Buchowski (seven boards) to help the Lady ’Hounds to a 36-25 advantage on the glass.

“We had a bad shooting night, but there were zero offensive rebounds,” McGarrah said. “Everyone we’ve played ran a zone on us, so we had plenty of practice against it. We just didn’t attack it well enough.”

The rebounding doesn’t surprise Turk. He sees it every day in practice.

“We’re a scrappy team,” he said. “(Kendall) did what she always does — just comes to work.”

Lindsey Sauers led Laurel with 12 points. She scored her team’s only four points in the last 5:25 of the game.