Though Amelia appeared to match up height-wise with Tandem Friends, it sure didn’t show statistically. Hattie Nguyen, Lizzie Stewart and Kate Moody were all over the offensive glass, and the Badgers made the most of the second chances, converting them into easy baskets. That wound up providing the difference in the tightly contested match as Tandem fought off a young but tough Patriots squad in the first round of the VISAA Division 3 tournament, 49-43.
“Rebounding is about will,” said Tandem coach Gordon Fields. “It’s not glamorous, it’s a will and you’ve just got to will your way to them.”
Before she left the game in the third quarter because of an injury, Stewart was giving Amelia Academy all kinds of trouble. The sophomore was piling up field goals, hauling in rebounds and making it look easy. And after she nursed her injury on the bench, Stewart gave Tandem the breathing room it needed, making a steal in the last minute and going end-to-end, finishing with an easy layup to put her squad up by three points.
“All I know is that I was nervous there at the end but wanted to win so badly,” Stewart said. “I had to come back after getting hurt because I just hate losing.”
Amelia committed an offensive foul on their following possession and the Patriots were forced to foul Tandem to preserve the clock from there on out. Stewart and Crystal Saravia pushed the Badgers out by 6 at the charity stripe before a 3-point heave from Kristyn Carney cut the deficit in half with 20 seconds to play. However, Tandem would hold on at the free throw line and wrap up the victory.
“That last three minutes where (our players) were holding the ball, they were executing everything we asked them to do,” Fields said. “That was so great to see because we were running the clock down and taking some chances with some real young girls. They stepped up.”
After Tandem dug out of a 5-point hole early in the first quarter, the lead changed hands 13 times. Lexi Penderton did the heavy lifting for Ameilia in the first half, scoring 11 of her team’s 22 points, nine of which came at the free throw line.
The foul situation presented the Badgers problems early on as both Nguyen and Emma Perkinson, two of the team’s three seniors, each had three fouls early in the third quarter, so Fields was forced to limit their minutes.
But whenever Nguyen or Perkinson were sidelined, Moody seemed to step up. The 5-foot-10 freshman wound up putting up seven points to go with nine rebounds.
“She’s come a long way from November up to now,” Fields said of Moody. “Right now she’s a big cog in what we do.”
Tandem’s defense was able to keep Penderton away from the free throw line in the second half, and as such the Patriots were finally forced to run their half court set with some regularity. As a result, Tandem was able to force a handful of turnovers, particularly in the fourth quarter.
“We knew that there was no room to foul,” Nguyen said. “It was such a tight situation, we had to play real clean defense.”
With the Badgers keeping a close watch on Penderton, Dasha Sorokina wound up taking over offensively, and the sophomore finished with 14 points, second on her team to Penderton who tallied 17.
Stewart led all scorers and rebounders with 20 points and 10 boards. She also collected three steals. And despite spending a significant portion of the game next to her coach, Nguyen put up 11 points and eight rebounds in her last home game.
“We sort of went through a lull in the middle of the season, but between the conference games and now this, it’s been real nice to way to cap things off as a senior,” Nguyen said.
The Badgers hit the road for the quarterfinals, but won’t travel far as they head to Miller. Fields is excited about how far his team has come, and is looking forward to taking the court against a talented Mavericks squad.
“We’re estatic,” Fields said. “We’re happy to be out of the first round and we really want to see where we are with Miller. We are trying to become a top level team and so playing Miller will let us know where we are.”
The two teams tipoff tonight at 5 p.m.
