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Tonasket 56, Lake Roosevelt 37
Game 10. (Loser out)
At Eastmont Junior High

The Tonasket win showed "what we can do when we are aggressive," said Tonasket coach Bill Myhr. "The other night we let Ephrata attack us."
Leading the inside game was the Tigers' talented sophomore six-footer, Kendra Curtis. She poured in 11 field goals on her way to a 28-point total and also snared 18 rebounds.
Myhr was pleased with the team rebounding, which showed Tonasket with a 41-25 edge. "Lake Roosevelt took only four off the offensive board all night." he noted.
Tonasket was never in any serious difficulty after cracking a 15-15 tie in the second quarter and moving out to a 28-16 halftime lead.
The Raiders' Shanee Haugen, the leading point producer in the district this season, was whistled for two fouls in the first two minutes and sat out the last 11 minutes of the first half after being called for foul number three.
She had her fourth foul in the first minute of the second half and never could operate effectively.
Freshman Nancy Kuiper led the Raiders with 13 points and Lisa Loe had 10.
Brenda Johnson, a 6-0 junior, teamed with Curtis on the inside and totaled 15 points.

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Liberty Bell 41, Tonasket 39
Game 11. (Loser out)
At Eastmont Junior High

Liberty Bell, one of the smallest girls basketball teams in the region, out-positioned Tonasket, one of the tallest to forge a thrilling victory at Eastmont Junior High Friday night.
The triumph moved the Mountain Lions just one victory away form obtaining the number two berth to the state basketball tournament.
"We are 20-3, and all three losses have come from Okanogan," said Liberty Bell coach Lance Hope. "We should be able to beat them this time. We match up with them pretty well."
The Lions maintained good position, both offensively and defensively, to slow down Tonasket's trio of six-footers.
"We are the smallest team in the league," said Hope. "All year long we've been going up against girls that are four, five, six inches taller. Bigger girls have a tendency to rely on natural ability and not concentrate on getting good position, so we stress position in all of our practices."
Liberty Bell took control of the contest in the third quarter when Staci Haugen scored three quick baskets to grab the lead and went up by six with two minutes left on a Julie Christianson putback.
Tonasket had several chances to tie the game in the closing seconds, but Liberty Bell was able to come up with key steals and clutch rebounds.
"Free throws have been our bugaboo all season long," said Hope after the Lions missed the front end of three one-and-one chances in the last 30 seconds that could have put the game away.
Christianson topped all scorers with 12 points from inside. Haugen popped in another 10.
"We pretty much did what we had to do when we needed to do it," said Hope. "We got a great effort inside, getting position on their big girls (Johnson, Curtis and Dugas). When they started falling in on us, we started to hit from the outside to draw them back out." 

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Ephrata 53, Okanogan 51
Game 12 (Championship, winner #1 to state)
At Eastmont Junior High

It was, as winning coach Don King put it, a shame that any team had to lose.
King's Ephrata Tigers were on the winning end of a 53-51 score at the finish of the classic confrontation with Okanogan. The two rivals hooked up in a heart-stopping battle for the North Central District "A" girls basketball championship before a near capacity crowd at the Eastmont Junior High gym Friday night.
With the victory, and the district championship, Ephrata's girls can pack their bags in preparation for a trip to Tacoma.
Ephrata and Okanogan had to do some waiting prior to the start of the championship game. It seems that the officials didn't get the word of the game shift (the championship game to precede the Liberty Bell-Tonasket contest in order to accommodate Tonasket fans, who also had a team to follow in the boys tourney).
"It's too bad there has to be a loser in a game like that," said Ephrata coach King in din of the Ephrata celebration. "Nobody said die." he said with reference to both teams.
And how did the Tigers accomplish this feat?
"Our goal was to stop Beth Campbell," said King. "We ran a 1-3-1 (zone defense) and I think we did a good job in the first half."
While Campbell, the Okanogan star and the only big girl in the Bulldogs' lineup, had trouble shaking her loose in the first half, she was able to operate with a little more freedom in the second half.
"It's hard to get loose when you have Angelina Andrews guarding you," said King.
"She sure played the "D," King said of his two seniors.
The other senior, Sara Monson, was the offensive standout. Her 24 points represents "her best offensive production of the year," King said. "She picked an opportune time to come through."
"That's our senior leadership (Monson and Andrews)."
Monson hit 12-of-16 free throws, including two with 12 seconds to play to lock up the win, Ephrata third district championship and sixth trip to state.
Those two free throws gave Ephrata a four-point cushion. Okanogan's Jill Pfeiffer scored from the top of the key with four seconds remaining to create the final margin.
Mary Beth Nelson, a 6-1 freshman, was the force that turned the momentum in Ephrata's favor. After Okanogan scrapped back from an eight-point deficit to tie the score at the half and go ahead by two early in the second half, Nelson became a big factor at both ends of the court in the third quarter.
And then when Okanogan took a three-point lead (for the second time) late in the game, Nelson made two big hoops, the second basket wresting the lead, at 50-49, with 1:22 to play. Campbell fouled out with 48 seconds remaining and Nelson added a free throw for a two-point Ephrata edge.
"We just got ourselves in foul trouble," said Okanogan coach Dick Merriman in the stillness of the Okanogan locker-room. "I thought we were still in the ball game at the end, but when we lost Beth we lost our rebounding."
Both coaches were complimentary of the other's team.
"I think Sara Monson deserves a lot of credit for that ball game," said Merriman.
"It was a super game," said King. "Dick Merriman does a super job with those girls."
Merriman looks for his girls to "spring back real quick" and be ready for the battle with Liberty Bell, with that coveted state berth at stake.
"They'll be worn down a little bit," he said. "No team gives more to a game," he said of his Okanogan players. 

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Okanogan 53, Liberty Bell 43
Game 13 (Winner #2 state, loser out)
At Eastmont High School

Okanogan coach Dick Merriman was elated that his girls basketball team qualified for the State Class A basketball tournament Saturday night at the Eastmont High gymnasium.
But he wasn't happy about who the Bulldogs beat to get there.
Okanogan landed a spot in the state tournament by turning back Liberty Bell in the North Central District "A" basketball tournament finale.
"I wish we would have beaten somebody else," said Merriman in sympathy for the Mountain Lions.
Ironically, the Lions had a perfect 20-0 record against everybody else they played. They were 0-4 against the Bulldogs.
"They kind of stepped up the pace on us and we fell into the trap," said Liberty Bell coach Lance Hope. "We've got to slow down the tempo to stay with any team we face. We can't blow out anybody."
Liberty Bell's patience paid off early, the Lions led 17-11 midway through the second quarter, but Okanogan got is running game going and turned that deficit into a 24-19 lead at halftime.
Liberty Bell came no closer than five points, it was 36-31 going into the final quarter, the rest of the way.
"When we play a good game our little guards always contribute," said Merriman.
And how they contributed!
When Okanogan took control of the contest in the second half, reserves Fawn Walker (5-4) and Terri Burchett (5-6) and starter Jill Pfeiffer (5-6) supplied most of the firepower.
It was a balanced effort by Okanogan all game long. Beth Campbell finished with 11 points. Walker and Pfeiffer each had 10 and Burchett added nine. Sheri Duke also made a solid contribution with seven points.
Julie Christianson played a courageous game for the Lions, scoring 10 of her team's 12 fourth-quarter points en route to a game-high 19 points.
Hope said his team's difficulty against Okanogan this season centered on the Bulldogs' "ability to create errors by their pressure defense. They're a darned good ball club. Dick (Merriman) teaches the team pressure concept all the way down to the junior high program."
"By the time the girls get up here (to the varsity level) they've got the system down. He's got to be congratulated for the fine effort his girls turned in."
As for his own club, Hope said. "It's going to be particularly hard to lose this group because we've been together so long."
"I've seldom seen any group that molded together like these girls. They're unselfish. They'd rather set somebody else up than take the shot themselves."

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Tournament Scoring Leaders