TACOMA — Holy Names lived up to its No. 1 ranking Thursday night, and the Prairie Falcons had to suffer through it.
Now, the Falcons hope they can take out their frustrations in the consolation bracket at the Class 3A state high school girls basketball tournament in the Tacoma Dome.
Erika Johnson and Claire Conricode combined to outscore the Falcons by themselves, leading Holy Names of Seattle to a 62-36 victory over Prairie.
Holy Names (24-2) will take on Shadle Park (18-8) in the championship semifinals Friday night. Prairie (19-7) will play Seattle Prep (17-10) in the fourth-place semifinals. Tip-off is 2 p.m.
Holy Names sent Prairie to the wrong side of the bracket with a barrage of rebounds and defensive pressure. The Cougars had 14 offensive rebounds, leading to 14 second-chance points. Prairie had no second-chance points.
“They’re a really good team and they’re really athletic,” Prairie junior Lauren Goecke said. “We had to block out, and we let that part (of the game) slide. They’re pretty good.”
The Falcons also struggled when they had the ball. Prairie had 24 turnovers, leading to 27 points for Holy Names.
“It’s a lot more pressure than we normally get,” said Goecke, who had nine points in the loss. “It’s either you do or you don’t. Tonight, we made some mistakes. We learned a lot. We just have to stay positive.”
The Falcons still can reach their goal earning a trophy from this tournament. They must win today to make it to Saturday.
“A game like this just really helps us,” freshman Jackie Lanz said. “We take the fire we have from this game and we take it out on the next team.”
The Falcons showed improvement in the second half, doubling their point total from the first half. Lanz said her team can use that effort for momentum in Friday’s game.
“Coach (Al Aldridge) talked about what we needed to do to stay with (Holy Names). We didn’t do what we needed to do to control them,” Lanz said. “But we brought it to them in the second half. We were so far behind, but we definitely brought it to them in the second half.”
Angela Gelhar, who made two 3-pointers in the third quarter, led Prairie with 10 points. Lanz had a three-point play in that period — Prairie’s best stretch — and finished with six points. Andrea Smith also had six points for the Falcons.
The second quarter is what did in the Falcons.
Prairie went 0 for 4 from the floor, 6 of 13 from the free-throw line, and committed 12 turnovers in the period.
Holy Names had a 10-0 run from the end of the first quarter through the beginning of the second. Then, the Cougars had a 12-0 spurt in a little more than three minutes to take a 32-9 lead.
Johnson finished with 22 points, eight rebounds, and three steals for the Cougars. Conricode added with 17 points.
“We wanted to keep them off the boards, and we couldn’t,” Aldridge said. “We tried everything in our bag of tricks, and we couldn’t get them off the boards.”
As the final score indicated, it was more than just the rebounding.
“There isn’t anything in the world that would have helped us tonight against that team,” Aldridge said.
He also told his players to keep their heads up. They just played one of the best teams in the state, and he reminded them that they have to focus on Friday’s game.
“Our goal is to get a trophy here,” Aldridge said. “Realistically, we knew it probably wasn’t going to be a No. 1 spot.”
Instead, the Falcons are hoping to reach the fourth-place game — and forget about Thursday’s loss.
