Medical Lake sweeps week's games, runs win streak to 12
Medical Lake's Jaycee Oliver drives towards the basket last Friday in the Chewelah game.
The Medical Lake girls' basketball team edged ever closer to a Northeast A League regular season title with a three-game sweep of league foes last week.
With wins at Riverside, 49-41 on Jan. 17, Chewelah, 46-37, Jan. 20 at home, and a road victory breeze last Saturday 52-26 where they doubled up on Colville, the Cardinals won their 12th consecutive game.
Medical Lake is a perfect 10-0 in the NEA (14-2 overall) and still maintains a two-game lead with four games remaining in the regular season. This week they were at Newport (3-7 NEA, 4-12) on Jan. 24 and host Freeman (4-8, 5-11) at 5:45 p.m.
"It was a great week, we played very well and I'm really proud of our girls," head coach Kyle Lundberg said.
Buoyed by a fast start at Deer Park where they led 30-12 at halftime, the Cardinals continued their defensive pressure, limiting the Stags to just 14 second-half points. On the other side of the ball, Medical Lake got a balanced scoring contribution from Makayla Geiger (12 points), Jayda Noble (11) and Lexi Redell (nine).
"We had a great defensive game against Deer Park, we were able to put a lot of ball pressure on them and our girls really got after it," Lundberg said. "We played extremely hard on defense and were able to create turnovers which resulted in fast break opportunities."
Friday versus, Chewelah, it was a tougher night with Medical Lake slowly pulling away late from a 28-23 halftime edge getting a pair of critical free throws from Jaycee Oliver with 53.2 seconds to play that expanded the lead to 44-37.
Noble dominated scoring with 21 points, the only Cardinal in double figures. "We have several players that are stepping up and making great contributions each game," Lundberg said. Noble is also contributing elsewhere, "Jayda Noble continues to get our fast break started with great rebounds," he added.
The week opened with Noble scoring 16 and Redell 14 versus Riverside. But it was a suffocating defense that was the difference, limiting the Rams to just nine first-half points. Riverside did start hitting the basket in the second half, but the Medical Lake cushion was sufficient.
"We don't have a certain goal in mind, but we do have a certain game plan when we play teams," Lundberg said of the defense. "It varies from team to team."
With a strong run going, Lundberg is seeing a team that he says is getting even better.
"Absolutely we are getting better, we seem to be headed in the right direction and have a good rotation now," he said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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