CHS Girls Basketball

Rylee Walker led Stevenson (0-4, 2-9) and all scorers with 18 points. Natalie Saunders chipped in eight.

The Bruins entered the fourth quarter down by one point but overcame that deficit by outscoring the Bulldogs 12-9 in the fourth quarter.

Becky Clary had all of her five points in the final eight minutes of play--including a game-changing 3-pointer--and Ziegler tallied seven.

"It was a good win for us," Bruins Coach Mike Yarnell said. "We had some girls step up big-time in the second half. They made up their minds at halftime that they weren't going to lose to Stevenson."

After one half, however, things didn't look good for CHS.

Columbia trailed by 11 points (26-15) at halftime but got back into the game by shutting Stevenson out in the third quarter while putting in 10 points of its own.

"The first two minutes of the third quarter was the turning point," Yarnell said. "We came out and got two stops right away, went down and scored, and that got a little momentum going our way. Then we threw our 1-3-1 trap on them and they didn't handle that well at all."

Nor did either team shoot the ball particularly well. CHS was 15 of 57 from the field and 6 of 13 from the foul line, while Stevenson was 14 for 38 and 7 for 17 respectively--but the game won't be remembered for that.

What will be said by those who played it and watched it is that it was an exciting game of equally matched rivals battling from start to finish for that all-important first Trico Division breakthrough.

After the first quarter ended in a 10-all deadlock, Stevenson went on the offensive in the second.

Led by the inside play of post players Saunders and Walker, and helped by a stingy defense, the Bulldogs outscored the Bruins 16-5 to take the game's biggest lead into the intermission and, with it, all the momentum.

Saunders netted six of her eight points in the second quarter, while Walker finished the first half with 12.

But Columbia had a surprise for Stevenson when the teams took the court for the start of the second half.

The Bruins started by pressuring the ball on the wings; that prevented the Bulldogs' from dumping the ball inside to Walker.

Then, they sprung their trapping defense on the Bulldogs and used the turnovers it caused to create the easy scoring opportunities they needed to get back into the game.

Still, Stevenson had two chances to tie the game in the last 16 seconds. But four misses at the free-throw line sealed its fate.

Sideline notes:

Yarnell, CHS's third-year coach, is now 5-0 against Stevenson, which has lost nine straight to Columbia since 2001.