Haven tournament: Cheney, Goddard reach championship game

Unlike Thursday’s first-round victory, Wellington was denied a cardiac ending in Friday night’s semifinals of the Wildcat Classic.

Cheney senior post Haley Albers made sure of that.

The 6-foot-1 Albers ignited Cheney in the first half with three three-pointers and 11 points, then went 6 for 6 from the free-throw line to seal Cheney’s 54-47 victory.

Cheney (9-2) will face Goddard (9-2) for the championship on Saturday. The Lions advanced by knocking off top-seeded Kingman in the other semifinal, 45-28, handing Kingman its first loss.

Wellington (7-4), which will face Kingman (10-1) for third place, handed Rose Hill its first loss Thursday when Lauryn Snipes banked in a three-pointer at the buzzer in double overtime.

No such miracles would occur Friday.

Albers managed to have her way early. Her eight points were part of an 18-point second quarter that gave the Cardinals a 28-24 halftime lead.

Cheney led by as many as 10 points in the fourth quarter before Wellington came storming back, taking a 47-46 lead with 2:32 to play on Avery Rusk’s two free throws.

“We got up by 10, and we knew they were going to come back,” Cheney coach Rod Scheer said. “They’re just that good and that talented.”

But Emily Monson hit a jumper in the lane that gave Cheney the lead again, and Wellington didn’t score again.

Wellington sent Albers to the line three times, and her free throws closed the scoring.

“It was good to get on a hot stretch early, then hitting those (free throws) down the stretch was key,” she said. “It was good, but my teammates did a good job of getting me the ball.”

She said she knew Wellington wasn’t going to roll over.

“They get out in transition,” Albers said. “If you don’t get back, they’ll make you pay for it.”

Snipes was hampered by three first-half fouls and managed just seven points.

“That was our game plan,” Albers said. “Stay on her, make sure she has to work for everything she gets. I thought we did a good job of executing that.”

Wellington also struggled against Cheney’s full-court press, turning the ball over on five-second calls twice within 53 seconds midway through the fourth quarter.

Wellington coach Eric Adams was already mulling the third-place game.

“If you can get out of this tournament at 2-1, you’ve accomplished a lot,” he said. “Our kids are mentally tough. We’ll move on.”

Goddard 45, Kingman 28 — Senior exchange student Silvia Cortese led a balanced Lions scoring attack with 12 points, and Goddard jumped to a 24-15 halftime lead and cruised from there.

“One thing we can do is we’ve got a lot of versatile kids,” Lions coach Kevin Hackerott said. “If they put a smaller kid on Kade (Hackerott, Kevin’s daughter), then she can go post up. They put a smaller kid on Silvia, and she went down low and got us some big buckets just to kind of get us going.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Haven tournament: Cheney, Goddard reach championship game."