After a celebrating their first Northern Lakes Conference title since 2004 on Saturday, Warsaw's varsity basketball team honored its seniors Tuesday.
Hosting the Fort Wayne Snider Lady Panthers (11-7), the Lady Tigers (14-5) trailed the majority of the game, but outscored their foes 19-8 in the fourth quarter to take the 58-50 senior night win.In honor of senior night, Warsaw coach Michelle Harter went with an all-senior lineup that fell behind 12-4 in the first three minutes.
Once Harter began getting her regular girls into the game, Warsaw used an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 14-12.
"It was an emotional night for them, because it was their last home game," Harter said. "So, they got off to a little bit of a slow start. Then, we began subbing in girls that are used to being out there and we got into the flow a little bit."
Warsaw did get into the flow, but could never take control of the game.
"In the first half, we were letting them speed us up, and we were turning the ball over," Harter said. "In the second half, we took care of the basketball."
In the opening half, Warsaw turned the ball over 14 times and allowed Snider to nab 11 offensive rebounds, resulting in a 30-27 deficit.
"We just talked about not letting their physicality and their pushing us and their shoving us take us out of our game," Harter said. "We had to play our game and come out and relax. That's what we did."
Along with Snider's physicality, Warsaw also had trouble keeping track of Panthers senior Kaylee Walters in the first half.
Through the first 16 minutes of the game, Walters scored 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting, but only shot the ball three times in the second half, scoring two points.
"I think she got less aggressive," Snider coach Ryan Gould said about Walters. "She passed up some shots she needed to take. Honestly, she overpassed a little bit. I felt like she had some of the same looks she had in the first half."
Even without Walters scoring, Snider found a way to keep Warsaw down through much of the second half.
Things began to fall apart when the Panthers defense left Warsaw junior Kaelee Sands all alone for a three-pointer, which she made and gave her team its biggest lead at 49-46 with 4:02 to play.
From there, the Tigers outscored the Panthers 12-4 until the final horn sounded.
"We didn't win because we didn't play good enough defense," Gould said. "They had too many offensive rebounds, and when you give up 19 points in the fourth quarter, it's hard to win on the road."
Snider's defensive struggles were highlighted by Warsaw's 52-percent shooting, led by senior
Sarah Shilling's 15 points on 7-fof-10 shooting.
"We gave up way too many easy shots in the second half," Gould said. "They may have hit a three and a two-pointer, but everything else was a foot away from the basket. Shilling and (junior Kayla) Stout combined for 29 points, and that's not going to work."
Stout scored 14 points by going 4-for-9 from the field and 6-for-8 from the free-throw line, scoring a lot of the easy points that Harter had hoped for.
"Against their pressure, we talked about getting to our spots early and then fake a pass to make a pass," she said. "When we got the ball in the middle, we looked to attack the basket. Our post players also started crashing the boards and getting easy buckets."
Senior Kelci Freds scored nine points in the win, while Sands also had a solid game with eight points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Walters led Snider with 16 points and sophomore Akilah Sims hauled in 13 rebounds to go with her nine points.
The Tigers close out their regular season Thursday at South Bend Riley, where the junior varsity will tip off at 6:15 p.m.
Warsaw (17-2) - Sarah Heagy 12, Madison Davis 10, Lauren Burish 7, Brooke Kline 5, Jennifer Walker-Crawford 5, Courtney Stetzel 4, Tiffany Tat 4, Meredith Hollar 4
