By Matt Turer — mturer@ky3.com
@MattTurer
Clinton, Mo. — When Walnut Grove’s Final Four streak began, Bayley Harman was in sixth grade, watching older sister Heather Harman help lay the groundwork for a dynasty. Saturday, she took the lead in pushing that streak to six consecutive semifinal appearances.
Harman scored 13 of her game-high 23 points and swiped three Leeton passes in the first quarter as a part of 25-3 Walnut Grove run to open play against the Lady Bulldogs in a 51-39 Lady Tigers victory.
Foul trouble began to sting Harman and Walnut Grove midway into the second and third quarters, allowing Leeton to close the gap to 10 points in the third quarter and utilize its full-court press.
“Heck, we’re going to the Final Four, so however we won it, we’ll take it,” Walnut Grove coach Rory Henry said. “We can be disappointed in the way we played down the stretch. That was the first time all year that put that type of pressure on us, and we weren’t familiar with it.”
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Raylie Hejna finished with 14 points for Walnut Grove (27-4), which led Leeton 31-12 at the half.
“Third quarter, we made a great run at them,” Leeton head coach Travis Fleming said. “We couldn’t make a shot in the first half. We like to press, and it’s hard to press when you can’t get a shot to fall. Third quarter we did what we like to do.”
Up 10 late in the third quarter but with momentum somehow swaying Leeton’s way despite the early 22-point deficit, Harman came up with a steal from Leeton senior Jade Schnatz that reclaimed momentum for the Lady Tigers as Harman hit a pair of free throws at the other end.
“Coach [Henry] calls it stepping on the throat. We get out to quick starts and sometimes let our foot off the gas, but we’ve just got to keep going,” Harman said.
Allison French led Leeton with 15 points. While the Lady Tigers are familiar with deep postseason runs, Saturday’s quarterfinals appearance was the first of its kind for the Lady Bulldogs. Harman gave them no time to adjust to the moment, hitting a 3-pointer seconds after tip-off that kickstarted the one-sided first half.
“Big shot off the top,” Fleming said. “I knew we were going to have a little bit of a bright-light scenario, this being deep water for us versus their experience.
“That’s a big basket right out the gate to give them some momentum. And then the physicality. We just didn’t do a very good job of on-the-ball. All our cuts we just let them jam us and re-route us to wherever they wanted to go, and that took a lot of the continuity out of the offense.”
With things getting no easier from here on out, Leeton’s comeback effort and impressive pressure defense may prove to be a valuable lesson for the Lady Tigers heading into next week’s Final Four.
“We walked into the locker room and half of them about collapsed,” Henry said. “They gave everything they absolutely had, and hats off to Leeton, they played hard, they didn’t quit and it was a good quarterfinal game.”
Walnut Grove will face Prairie Home (22-8) on March 9 at 5 pm in Columbia.
FINAL: Walnut Grove 51, Leeton 39
Leeton 3 9 15 12- 39
Walnut Grove 23 8 10 10- 51
Leeton- Allison French 15, Madison Rehkop 7, Jade Schnatz 5, Hannah Harper 5, Kayla Crowder 3, Jordan Mudd 2, Stephanie Goodrich 2
Walnut Grove- Bayley Harman 23, Raylie Hejna 14, Grace Miller 6, Grace McPhail 3, Myranda McVay 3, Cortney Stevens 2
