BRUSH PRAIRIE — When the Prairie girls basketball team saw the RPI ratings had slotted the undefeated Falcons at 38th in the state on Wednesday morning, there was confusion.
“How could this happen?,” asked the team that sat 4-0 with three wins over 4A teams going into Wednesday night’s game against another 4A side.
Head coach Hala Corral fielded texts from parents. There was chatter amongst the team about it.
If anything, the rankings served as motivation for Prairie to overcome a flat second quarter through scrappy guard play and run past 4A Union on Thursday night, 52-27.
In the landslide win, Prairie led by seven going into the fourth quarter, then scored more points in the final eight minutes than it did in the first half. The Falcons came away with 17 steals as a team — many of them in the second half.
And with an offense that can be so geared around the posts — namely 6-foot-3 Brooke Walling — Thursday night featured stingy guard play on both sides of the ball.
Junior Cassidy Gardner hit three 3-pointers and finished with 13 points and eight assists. Sophomore point guard Allison Corral pitched in 12 points and six, seven of them came in the fourth quarter.
For Corral, her primary role is a distributor. But the quick, crafty guard can get to the rim effectively, and on Wednesday night, it took a nudge from Gardner to initiate that.
“Her being one of the older players on the team I listened, and it helped a lot,” Allison Corral said. “I’m always thinking about getting my teammates open, getting my teammates the ball, getting them opportunities, so whenever someone tells me ‘go,’ I know if they believe in me I can do it.”
Prairie had its lead cut to three going into halftime after being held to three points in the second half. At the half, the message was simple.
“Don’t let up,” Hala Corral said. “We want to make sure we play our game the entire game, and no matter what the score is to work on our stuff to get better.”
Mackenzie Lewis led Union (6-2) in scoring with six points in the Titans’ lowest scoring game of the season.
And the Falcons, who haven’t forgotten getting seeded 12th in last year’s state tournament and losing in the first loser-out gam, hope it will be yet another message to the RPI formula that ranks them behind three teams with losing records (including Shadle Park, which currently sits at 0-3) and six teams with .500 records.
“It was kind of like ‘wow,’ ” Walling, who finished with 14 points and 13 boards, said. “(The RPI) definitely screwed us over last year, so maybe it’ll do it again. But we just have to play our game and take it one game at a time and hopefully it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s a big prove-everyone-wrong type of thing. It has us at (37) and we’re trying to get to 1, so we just have to do what we do.”
PRAIRIE 52, UNION 27
UNION (6-2) — McKenna Vega 0, Mason Oberg 3, Marina Morningstar 3, Tory Midland 4, Rebekah Barney 2, Abbey Kaip 5, Mackenzie Lewis 6, Courtney Cranston 4. 11 (2) 3-6 27.
PRAIRIE (5-0) — Meri Dunford 2, Allison Corral 12, Sydney Weber 0, Brooke Walling 14, Mallory Williams 8, Cassidy Gardner 13, Haley Reed 3, Lauren Vreeken 0. 16 (3) 4-6 52.
