Horizon girls head back to the state tournament

Horizon lost its opening district tournament game against Sherman by a final score of 36-33, which sent Sherman to the title game and the Hawks to the third-place game, where they’d match up against Ione.

In the regular season, Horizon and Ione split their season series 1-1: Horizon would lose the first matchup on the road as Ione won 44-36. A couple weeks later, Ione would travel to the Hawks Nest and Horizon would come away with the 52-38 victory.

Last Saturday night at Madras, the two teams would face off at a neutral site to determine who would be moving on to the state playoffs and who would be heading home.

Ione jumped out to a hot start early as they went on a 10-3 scoring run, the Cardinals’ largest of the game.

The Hawks responded by closing the quarter on a 4-0 run to cut the Cardinals’ lead to three heading into the second quarter, 10-7.

The two teams went back-and-forth with one another in the second quarter, but Horizon edged out Ione 13-10 to tie the game at 20 heading into halftime.

In the third quarter, the Hawks would start to pull away from the Cardinals.

The Hawks went on the largest scoring run of the game in the third, 11-2, and went into the fourth up 37-30 after outscoring the Cardinals 17-10 in the third.

Horizon was able to maintain its lead heading in to the fourth, outscoring Ione 17-16 in the final quarter, and would go on to win by a final score of 54-46 to clinch a spot into the 1A State Playoff Tournament.

Exceptional shooting from the line throughout the entire game for Horizon was one of the main reasons why the girls were able to win third place at districts and clinch a spot in the 1A playoffs.

In the first half, the Hawks were 3-4 from the free throw line and in the second half knocked down 16-27, while Ione shot only 4-6 from the line throughout four quarters.

Despite a team-total of 20 turnovers, the Hawks still won the turnovers battle as they forced 21 turnovers on Ione, including 15 steals as a team for the Hawks.

Horizon game leaders: Sophomore Fionna Marsalis led the Hawks in scoring with 17 points and she would end with a double-double as she added 11 rebounds. The Hawks second leading scorer was senior Alexis Ruiz, who had 15 points. Kaitlin Wenz would also earn herself a double-double with her 11 points and a team-high 19 rebounds.

The Hawks opened the 1A playoffs on the road versus Damascus Christian on Tuesday, Feb. 20 (results unavailable at press time).