Basketball Recap: Gabriella Barnes' Big Game Can't Quite Lead Fort Wayne Snider over Valparaiso

Fort Wayne Snider saw some tournament action on Saturday. They took a 59-41 bruising from the Valparaiso Vikings. The Panthers were down 53-26 at the end of the third quarter, which was just too much to recover from.

Fort Wayne Snider's defeat came despite a true team effort from the offense, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Gabriella Barnes, who posted 11 points. Those 11 points gave Barnes a new career-high. Another player making a difference was Kyra Parker, who put up ten points.

Lillian Barnes continued her habit of posting crazy stat lines for Valparaiso, going 7 of 14 on her way to 21 points in addition to eight rebounds and six assists. That makes it three consecutive games in which Barnes has scored at least a third of Valparaiso's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Cadynce Clark, who went 5 for 10 on her way to 13 points and three steals.

This is the second loss in a row for Fort Wayne Snider and nudges their season record down to 9-7. As for Valparaiso, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight games, which provided a massive bump to their 9-5 record this season.

Fort Wayne Snider will get a bit of extra time to process the loss as their next game is a ways off. They'll take on Fort Wayne Northrop at 6:00 p.m. on January 10th. As for Valparaiso, they didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next contest, a 43-37 defeat against Noblesville on the 28th.