By JOE SAGER
ncsports@ncnewsonline.com

The Wilmington High girls basketball team’s best offense is a good defense.

Last night, neither one clicked consistently as Moniteau claimed a 41-29 win in the Union Boosters Tournament championship game at Mike Covelli Field House.

The Lady Greyhounds (6-3) used a solid defensive effort to advance to the title game, but were unable to repeat the effort against the Lady Warriors (3-2).

“We just couldn’t get anything done defensively,” Wilmington coach Brandy Sanford said. “Defense is where it’s at for us. We couldn’t get that going and, therefore, we couldn’t get our offense going either. The girls played hard and didn’t give up, but it just wasn’t there for us.”

Moniteau held a 19-point edge at one point in the fourth quarter, but settled for the 12-point win.

“Overall, I am really happy,” Moniteau coach Mark Yeager said. “To win a championship, that’s nice for a young team. We’ve been coming here 20 years and this is the first time we’ve won the championship.”

The Lady Warriors posted a 13-7 lead after the first quarter. They increased their advantage to 22-14 at halftime.

Moniteau appeared poised to run away with the game in the third as it built a 32-14 buffer with 4:56 remaining in the third. However, Wilmington went on a 6-0 run. Julie Burns had two buckets and Mackenzie Hiers added another in the spree to trim the deficit to 32-20 with 2:03 left in the quarter.

The Lady Greyhounds could not get any closer as the Lady Warriors increased their lead to 41-22 in the fourth before hanging on for the 41-29 win.

“We played really well for three and a half quarters,” Yeager said. “I don’t understand it — they went into a 2-3 zone and we started throwing the ball around. It makes no sense to me. We’re real young; we lost our composure. We seemed to think we had to rush things when we didn’t.

“We’re lucky we had a 19-point lead, that’s all I am saying. This was a really good tournament for us. We’ve been struggling. We have a tendency to lose our poise and composure.”

Nikki Yeckel led Moniteau with 12 points. Amanda Sloan added 10 points and was named the tournament’s MVP. Krista Snyder had six points and was named to the all-tournament team.

Burns had a game-high 14 points for Wilmington, while Haley Marett added nine points. Both made the all-tournament team.