PRAIRIE GUARD Cherita Daugherty (32) will try to lead her team into the Class 3A girls state tournament with a win Saturday over Mercer Island at Battle Ground High School.
The Prairie Falcons need just one more win to make it to the Class 3A state girls basketball tournament and they will get a rare opportunity to get that important win close to home.
Prairie will play host to Mercer Island Sat., Feb. 27, at 6 p.m., at Battle Ground High School in a regional tournament game that will send one team to the state tournament and the other home for the season.
“They’ve got three girls who can really play,’’ said Prairie coach Brett Johnson, referring to Mercer Island, the No. 3-ranked team in the Associated Press 3A girls poll. “They try to take advantage of the middle from the free throw line to down low. They rotate their two bigs and they play a lot of high-low.’’
Johnson was kicking himself after the Falcons’ 56-55 loss to Lincoln Thursday in the bi-district semifinals at Franklin Pierce High School.
“We played man-to-man (defense) most of the game,’’ Johnson said. “At the end, we switched to our press and we forced some turnovers so I second-guessed myself. We didn’t do bad in the man-to-man but it made me think we could have gotten some more turnovers if we would have pressed the whole game.’’
Prairie, which fell to 20-4 with the loss, did force the Abes (22-1) into 24 turnovers. The Falcons’ efforts were hampered by the fact that both Natalie Whitesel and Kris Rocci each fouled out in the game. Both players finished with two points.
Cherita Daugherty led all scorers in the game with 22 points. She also had eight rebounds.
“She kept us in that game,’’ Johnson said of Daugherty. “She was making some strong drives to the hole.’’
Grace Prom chipped in 10 points for the Falcons and Jozie Tangeman added nine.
Johnson said the key against Mercer Island (20-5) will be how the Falcons play on defense.
“It depends on whether or not we’re going to come out aggressively on defense and pressure the ball the way we know we can,’’ Johnson said.
Daugherty had 16 points to lead the Falcons to a 71-31 win over Bonney Lake in the quarterfinals of the bi-district tournament, played Feb. 13 at Franklin Pierce High School. Prom added 14 points in that win and Tangeman chipped in 12.
