The smile
Dashawn Harden was wearing following Saturday's 58-54 win over previously unbeaten and Class 6A third-ranked Shawnee Mission West said it all.
Heights' Dashawn Harden.
Photo by Dean Backes
For nearly four years, these seniors playing under
Aquinas (Overland Park) coach Rick Hetzel had come close to winning a basketball tournament. But each time, the Saints fell short.
Not on Saturday. Harden scored 30 points in the win, including nine of Aquinas' 15 third-quarter points.
"This feels really good," an elated Harden said following the championship game of the Shawnee Mission South basketball tournament. "All we talked about was how we hadn't won a tournament since we've been here. So it feels really good to win a tournament. We lost last year to Shawnee Mission West, so it feels really good to win this one."
In order to improve his team's chances of tasting success, from beginning to end in the tournament, Hetzel knew the Saints would have to at least slow down Viking star
Lizzy Jeronimus. So he put 6-foot senior
Katie Brown on her.
The strategy worked.
"We just focused on pushing Lizzy to the right because she's really good," Harden said of the 5-11, left-handed senior guard. "She's really, really good."
Harden recalled the Saints coming out with a lot of emotion, allowing the 2009-10 Class 5A runners-up to get off to a hot start. Aquinas never trailed in the first half, building leads of 16-9 and 27-21 after the first and second quarters respectively. At one point, Harden and company found themselves up by a dozen points in the first 16 minutes.
The 9-1 Vikings made a run in the third quarter and momentarily took the lead at 42-40, before Aquinas drew even at 42-42 going into the final eight minutes. Shawnee Mission West used pressure to force the Saints into uncharacteristic errors during the second half run.
"We didn't really expect them to press us," Harden said, "so they rattled us a little bit. But we got it done. We just kept playing. We always talk about winning the first three minutes and unfortunately we lost the first three minutes coming out at halftime. But in the fourth quarter we stepped it up."
Brown and Nelly Weledji scored eight points each.
Brooke Katterhenry led the way for the Vikings with 13 points, while Jeronimus and
Sophie Stallbaumer added 12 each.
Whitney Knightly contributed 10 points for Shawnee Mission West.
With the win, Aquinas rests firmly atop the 5A ratings and remains third in the Kansas girls Top 10 followed by West at fourth. West is not punished for the loss, remaining third in the Kansas big school poll.
BULL PUP RALLY FALLS SHORT AGAINST HEIGHTS BOYSBefore a rowdy ‘Roundhouse' crowd,
Heights (Wichita) demonstrated exactly why it is the best Kansas has to offer when it comes to boys high school basketball, upending the home team 81-73 in the championship game of the McPherson Invitational basketball tournament Saturday.
But it wasn't easy.
The Falcons outscored the Class 5A top-ranked Bullpups 19-14 in the opening quarter and pushed the margin to 41-25 at the half. But McPherson opponents get no free rides when entering the ‘Roundhouse,' and the Bullpups rallied in the second half.
"I told my guys at halftime what a lousy scouting report that I came up with," McPherson coach Kurt Kinnamon told the Wichita Eagle after watching the Falcons get off to a hot start. "And the demoralizing thing was they were shots that bounced way up and then you thought it was coming out, then it goes in.
"The roof was coming off the place when we made our run. If you can't smile after that…we had a lot of fun."
McPherson was led in the title game by
Christian Ulsaker's 39-point effort.
Jack Pyle chipped in another 24 points.
Wichita Heights, meanwhile, used a balanced approach to winning the game, led by
Perry Ellis' 23 points.
Terrence Moore and
Evan Wessel added 16 and 15 points respectively for the two-time defending 6A champions.
Dreamius Smith added 14 points, while
E.J. Dobbins contributed 11.
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