Lady Blackhawks earn split at West Valley Tourney

The Cheney High boys’ and girls’ basketball teams saw limited action over the holiday break, but action producing good results.

The Lady Blackhawks were the busier of the two squads, taking part in the West Valley Tournament Dec. 28-29 where they opened with a 58-38 loss to 1A classification LaSalle High School on Monday but finished with a 65-43 win over 2B Lake Roosevelt Tuesday. The Blackhawk boys downed Northeast A League’s Deer Park, 51-38, Dec. 29 in the away portion of their home-away season series with the Stags.

The Lady Blackhawks played the Lighting from the South Central Athletic Conference evenly through the first eight minutes of their opener, but went cold from the field the next 16. The visitors from Union Gap outscored Cheney 31-11 in the second and third quarters to essentially put the game away, holding off a Lady Blackhawks rally in the fourth.

Kristie McGourin and Hailey Pemberton led Cheney in scoring with 10 points each while Brette Draper added seven.

Cheney enjoyed a much better shooting night 24 hours later against the Lady Raiders from Coulee Dam, jumping out to a 22-7 first quarter lead and never looking back. Pemberton led all scorers with 13 points to go with eight rebounds. Draper added 10 points and McGourin eight with 11 boards.

The Blackhawk boys had a fairly easy time that same night in Deer Park, sprinting to a 29-20 halftime lead and keeping the Stags at arms length from there. Cameron Hardt and Landon West led Cheney with 12 points each while Ty Graham added nine as Cheney turned most of Deer Park’s 23 turnovers into points in the win.

The win moved the Blackhawks’ record to 4-3 overall, 0-1 in Great Northern League play with the Cheney girls going to 3-5 overall, 0-1 in league. Both teams now enter the meat of their schedule with GNL games at home against East Valley (Jan. 5) and defending 2A state champion Clarkston (Jan. 8) before hitting the road to face Pullman on Jan. 9.

Cheney’s boys and girls return home to host NEA Medical Lake on Thursday, Jan. 14, in the annual Spirit Game.

Lady Blackhawks Box

LaSalle 12 15 16 15 – 58

Cheney 11 5 6 16 – 38

Draper 7, Flynn 0, Crawford 0, Lemelin 0, Huff 5, Pemberton 10, Stark 3, McGourin 10, Davis 1, Potter 2, Spakousky 0.

Lake Roosevelt 7 8 9 19 – 43

Cheney 22 13 13 17 – 40

Draper 10, Flynn 6, Crawford 1, Lemelin 5, Huff 3, Pemberton 13, Stark 8, McGourin 8, Davis 4, Potter 7, Spakousky 0.

Blackhawks Box

Cheney 15 14 9 13 – 51

Deer Park 6 14 8 10 – 38

Jones 5, Hardt 12, Graham 9, Johnson 2, West 12, Felix 2, Worthem 3, Reiter 6, Wichman 0.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].