Wellington girls suffer season’s first loss in 4A-I semifinals (+video)

The shock on Wellington senior Grace Mitchell’s face when she was called for a charging foul quickly turned to despair. It was Mitchell’s fifth foul and, with nearly four minutes remaining in Friday’s Class 4A-I semifinal, she no longer had a chance to help her team reach the championship.

Paola handed Wellington its first loss of the season with a 64-51 win and will play in Saturday’s title game. Paola finished second in 2015.

Losing always hurt, but to have that first loss come in the semifinals hurt even worse.

“It’s very sad,” said Wellington junior Lauryn Snipes, who had 18 points. “I don’t have any words.”

It was especially disappointing because Wellington started so poorly.

Paola had a 19-9 lead by the end of the first quarter, hitting two threes in the final 40 seconds.

“We came out tense,” Wellington coach Eric Adams said. “You think about it, the first quarter is about the difference in the whole game.… We couldn’t play our game, and Paola did.”

Wellington senior Grace Mitchell added: “I don’t think it was clicking for us early. I don’t think we were rebounding the ball. We did a lot better as a whole (in the second half) and in the fourth quarter we tied it.”

Wellington got within 23-17 with 4:55 remaining in the first half after Avery Rusk scored inside and Lauryn Snipes made two free throws.

But that’s when Paola went on a 10-0 run for its biggest lead of the game at 33-17. Wellington kept Paola in reach when, in the final 1:26, got a three from Snipes, a putback by Mitchell and a Mitchell three.

Paola, which outrebounded Wellington 20-10 in the first half, led 36-25 at intermission.

Wellington crawled back into the game and, with an 8-2 run that began in the third quarter with a driving layup by Snipes, Mitchell tied the score at 47-all eight seconds into the fourth period. She finished with 18 points, nine rebounds.

“They could have folded up early,” Adams said. “They didn’t.… For them to battle back, to tie it, we thought we had them on the ropes.”

Less than 10 seconds after Mitchell’s game-tying basket, Paola’s Taylor Williams pulled up for a three-pointer in transition for the 50-47 lead.

“Gotta match whatever they do, right?” Williams said.

Paola coach Stuart Ross added: “We made some good stops, especially in the fourth quarter. We had to. They were coming at us.”

Wellington’s game-tying rally took its toll on the Crusaders.

Williams’ 3 sparked Paola, which ended the game by scoring 17 of the final 21 points.

“You kind of just get gassed when you make that kind of a run,” Adams said. “It takes a lot out of you. We just didn’t have that next … we couldn’t refuel.”

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Wellington girls suffer season’s first loss in 4A-I semifinals (+video)."