(GIRLS) McMath Earns Third Place with Win Over Heritage Woods
Heritage Woods Kodiaks vs McMath Wildcats
December 11, Third Place Game
Written by Jeff McCutcheon, Handsworth Grad ‘06
This year’s 3rd place game was going to be a good one! We had the Heritage Woods Kodiaks vs the McMath Wildcats. Both teams are coming off tough loses in the semis. Heritage Woods fell to Walnut Grove while McMath lost a tight game to Churchill.
McMath came out to a quick start picking up 4 points in the early going. As the quarter went on Heritage Woods began picking up momentum and after a couple clutch free throws from #8 Haley Hughes we had a 4-3 game. So far the Kodiaks have played a very intense full court press and in the later parts of the quarter it seemed to be paying off forcing multiple turnovers. But they needed to start capitalizing on these turnovers if they wanted to win this game. After the 1st quarter they found themselves down 18-15 to the Wildcats.
McMath started off the second quarter where they left off the first. Thanks to some nice quick breaks they went on a 6-0 run and took a 9-point lead. A big part of this was #9 Martina Radocaj. She has worked the perimeter nicely and always seemed to be in the right place when there was a rebound in the paint. With 4 minutes left in the half Wildcats Caitlin Kippan sporting Quinn’s #13 put back a beautiful “And one” play. Converting on the free throw this seemed to have fired up her team and they extended their lead to 7 at half time, 35-28.
Halftime thought:
The playing styles of these two teams are a near replica of their head coaches. The Heritage Woods Kodiaks coach Ross Tomlinson had his team firing on a very intense, fast paced, in-your-face style. While McMath Wildcats coach Jamie Kippan had his squad playing a calm, methodical, more set play style. We’ll see which approach pays off in the long run!
A bit of foul controversy started off the second half as Wildcats #9 Martina Radocaj picked up her fourth foul early. Her coaches believed this was her 3rd foul but the refs had it the other way. If I wasn’t using my entire brain capacity trying to write this I might be able to shed some light on the situation. Turns out I have no idea though. What I do know is the Kodiaks would have a great opportunity to claw themselves back in this game with her on the bench or playing afraid to pick up her 5th. She has been a force on the boards all afternoon. Look out on Sportsnet tonight for the “plays of the day.” If someone was filming this game you’ll see Kodiak’s guard #21 Josie Latifpour with a quick baseline drive to the net and cap it off with an almost backwards under the net finger roll. Unfortunately, her team trailed by 10 heading into the last quarter. 48-38 Wildcats.
Needing to make up some ground Heritage Woods #22 Kate Mean and #2 Jenny Lee both were able to force turnovers and get themselves easy baskets early in the 4th. McMath #10 Quincy Hinds was having a great game. She’s played in the post and on multiple occasions picked up tough baskets for her squad. As the quarter went on the teams traded points but neither was able to put together any kind of big run. Of course, the Wildcats were happy with this but the Kodiaks needed to get something going down by 10 with 5 minutes left. Unfortunately for them McMath played a near perfect end to the game. Eating up the full shot clock and hitting shots on nearly every possession. They pulled away and won this one 66-48 in the end. Big shout out to Heritage Park for never giving up and fighting right to the whistle. Congrats to McMath for the big win and coming in 3rd place in this year’s No Regrets tournament.
We thank both teams for coming out and hope they enjoyed the weekend.
No regrets