(By MATT PIKE)
The Benton girls basketball team claimed their first Kearney tournament title since 2016, defeating Lafayette 60-46, holding off a rally from the Lady Irish in the second half after posting a dominant first half effort.
The Cardinals took over things in the first half of the game, in the first quarter knocking down four shots from beyond the arc and taking a 14-7 lead, before outscoring Lafayette in the second quarter 14-4, as the Lady Irish got off just two shots in total the entire quarter, going into the halftime break trailing 28-11.
Benton knocked down just five three’s in the first half, taking 13 shots total. Senior Eliana Arambula says what she saw through the first half was drive and kick.
“Being able to attack we knew that they were going be out pressuring us a lot, so the best way to do that is go right through them and then try to find the kick out,” Arambula tells reporters after the game. “I know we have some really amazing shooters on our team, so being able to find them was really the biggest part for us.”
Head Coach Rebecca Bailey says she thought her team did a good job getting downhill in the first half and getting open for shots on those kickouts.
“We tried to penetrate and do the same thing in the second half, we just weren’t hitting as well in the second half as we were in the first half, but I thought the girls did a really good job of just trying to penetrate, draw the defense, and then knock the shots that we needed to hit when we hit them,” Bailey says.
The Cardinals did continue to pull away in the third quarter, making the game look well in hand, though the Lady Irish fought back into it, trailing still by double digits at the end of the third quarter 44-25. The fourth quarter, things began to get interesting, and a last ditch effort by Lafayette proved fruitful.
The quarter was filled with mistakes for Benton, turnovers and missed shots that gave the Lady Irish the ball back, and Lafayette capitalized, ultimately cutting the Cardinals 19 point lead at the end of the third, down to as few as eight points. That’s when Bailey called the timeout that turned the tide back in Benton’s favor.
“The message to the girls was hey we’re still up so don’t hang your heads, you have worked your rears off to get to this point, so take a deep breath, be patient, go do what we know how to do, so just lock it in real quick,” Bailey explains. “Really concentrate on doing the little things, getting where you need to be on defense, boxing out every possession, being really strong with the ball, moving the ball on offense, so just really take a deep breath, and let’s get back to doing what we know how to do let’s just do those basics, just kind of help us take a deep breath and reset a little bit.”
Out of the break, Benton extended their lead back to double digits, and never let Lafayette get closer on way to the victory. It was the Cardinals first victory in the Kearney Bulldog Classic since 2016 when standout Daejah Bernard, a current assistant coach for the Arizona Sun Devils, was on the team. Arambula along with Jalynn Brown were named to the All Tournament team for Benton, while Emery Omon & Laniya Carriger made the team for Lafayette.
Arambula and Brown both had 14 points to lead the Cardinals. Klarabelle Turner had nine points. For the Lady Irish, Omon had 14 points, while Carriger had 12 points. Rozlyn McDevitt had nine points.
(You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.)
