Haven tournament: Defense leads Goddard to title

Denied the title a year ago, Goddard’s girls basketball team was determined to go home with the trophy.

The Lions shook off poor free-throw shooting to hold off Cheney 44-40 Saturday in the final of the Wildcat Classic.

Last season, Goddard had to deal with Wellington senior Grace Mitchell, who is now playing at Nebraska. In this final, the Lions had to contend with Cheney senior post Haley Albers, who was coming off a 19-point performance in a semifinal victory over Wellington.

Freshman Kade Hackerott, daughter of Goddard coach Kevin Hackerott, drew the defensive assignment early guarding Albers, who had four first-half points. But Hackerott found herself in foul trouble, so senior C.J. Wilhelm took over, and the two limited Albers to nine points.

“C.J. can be a bulldog when she wants to get after somebody, and I thought she did a great job,” Kevin Hackerott said.

Meanwhile, senior guard Madi Smith was powering the offense, hitting two three-pointers in the first half and had 10 at the break.

But when she got bottled up in the second half, Silvia Cortese, a senior exchange student from Italy, stepped up with eight of her 10 points after halftime. Her three free throws were important, as Goddard made 6 of 16 in the fourth quarter.

Hackerott was happy to come away with the tournament title.

“For three quarters, I thought we executed and played our game plan really, really well,” he said. “But then those last 3-4 minutes …

“It’s tough to win a championship, and we did just enough. We missed a lot of free throws (Goddard hit 15 of 27 in the game) and could have made that game a lot easier. But we found a way.”

One of the more suspenseful moments came with 13.5 seconds left, when junior Torri Vang went to the line for Goddard (10-2) with a chance to extend the 42-40 lead. She missed the first, but the second try bounced high and went through.

“It kind of rattled around, then it decided to go on in,” Hackerott said. “And that made it a little bit easier. I thought we defended the three-point line real well after that and we made just enough to get it done.”

Goddard led Cheney (9-3) by as many as 13 points before Cheney began to chip away.

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Haven tournament: Defense leads Goddard to title."