Woodcreek lets game slip away vs. Inderkum

When teams have hopes of winning a league championship, it hurts when they let games slip away on their home court. Woodcreek led Inderkum by nine points early in the third quarter. There's plenty of time to come back, but at 27-18, things were looking good. But in the end the Tigers came back to win this game on Monday night, 49-46. "Oh yes, we definitely feel like we let one slip away on our home court," Woodcreek coach Malcolm Brown said. "We told the girls before the game, we can't let teams we think we're better than stick around, especially when they get momentum. They're a good team, but I feel like if we played our game, we would beat them. We definitely played into their high tempo, while we wanted to slow the game down." Things were looking good at the half, but two things showed up in the second half that doomed the Timberwolves. One was foul trouble, as leading scorer Ryan Nair fouled out with 2:54 to play and her team down by one, and not too much later Izzy Deveraux followed. Secondly, Jamiah Fontenberry, Inderkum's leading scorer, had a big second half. After only scoring two points in the first half, Fontenberry scored 13 in the second half, as she couldn't be stopped, nor did Woodcreek have anyone down at the offensive end of the court to equal Fontenberry's scoring. "All year long, fouling and rebounding have been issues for us," Thomas said. "We tend to reach a lot on defense instead of moving our feet. We don't tend to box out, but instead try to out-jump teams for balls and we can't do that. If you let a good team having multiple chances, they're going to score. "As for Fontenberry, I feel she was just more aggressive in the second half and was taking it to the basket, which was a double negative. We couldn't stay in front of her, and then she'd get to the line and she got even more aggressive and we didn't have an answer for her." Another biggie that hurt Woodcreek was the three 3-pointers that Aaliyah Zairis hit in the third quarter. Zairis, a sophomore, entered the game averaging two points a game. If Woodcreek had no answer for Fontenberry, they certainly had nobody scoring seven more points than they're averaging. Zairis' third three with 2:35 to play in the third quarter cut Woodcreek's lead to two points, 32-30. By the time the quarter was over. Zairis hit one-of-two free throws to tie the game at 38, as Inderkum outscoring Woodcreek in the quarter, 20-13. Hillary Steinman hit a three-pointer 30 seconds into the fourth quarter that gave the Timberwolves their last lead of the game, 41-40. From there, Fontenberry scored the next six points to give Tigers the lead for good, 45-41. Deveraux managed to make a free throw just before fouling out to cut the deficit to one point with 3:32 to play, 45-44. Inderkum outscored Woodcreek 4-2 the rest of the game to hold on for the big win on the road, as they improved to 3-0 in league, while Woodcreek fell to 1-2. Fontenberry finished with 15 points to lead Inderkum, while Jonayah Johnson finished with 10 points. Ryan Nair led Woodcreek with 13 points, while Chloe Preuss scored 10 and Deveraux finished with eight.