Prosser girls advance to 2A semifinal

By Rene Ferran, Herald staff writer

YAKIMA -- It's difficult to find the Prosser red hair extensions braided into redhead Helen Petersen's long ponytail.

But they're in there.

"We did it last year, too. It's something that's become kind of a tradition for us," Petersen explained.

Just like beating Elma at the 2A state tournament has become kind of a tradition for the Mustangs, who beat the Eagles for the third straight year 62-56 on Thursday night in the quarterfinals at the SunDome.

"There was some talk before the game about that," said Petersen, who had 14 points and five assists. "But we knew if we came out and played hard, we'd give them a good run, and that's what we were able to do."

Now, for the third straight year, Prosser (21-3) finds itself in the semifinals. The past two years, the Mustangs have lost in this round -- first to River Ridge, then last year to Archbishop Murphy.

This time, they get West Valley (Spokane), which beat Ellensburg 35-28 in the late quarterfinal, at 9 p.m. today, hoping to revive another tradition -- getting to their third state final.

"We have not talked about that," Petersen said. "We've just taken it one game at a time at state. But the difference this year is that we've committed 100 percent since our first practice for this. We've gotten better every single game. We're ready to go."

They'll need to be against the Eagles (24-0), who demolished Prosser 63-49 in the third-place game last year.

Juniors Shanique Nilles (18.6 ppg) and Hannah Love (17.8 ppg) lead the Great Northern League champions.

"We need to play really tough defense the whole game," said Prosser junior Tamara Jones. "We can't let up."

Jones played a big part in Prosser getting past Elma for the second straight year in the quarterfinals -- the Mustangs also beat Elma in the third-place game in 2008.

Jones had 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting, pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds, had five steals and blocked three shots.

"We were just trying to get the ball into the post and trying to foul them out," Jones said. "We saw the openings (in their zone) and went to them."

And when the Mustangs didn't pound the ball inside, Petersen and Tayshia Hunt were able to find seams to slash into the lane.

"They were doing a good job guarding the post, but that left the back-side wide open for us," Petersen said.

Defensively, Kelli Wilson again handled the job of stopping a big-time scoring guard -- a night after holding Kingston's Sophia Baetz to two points, Wilson had to check Western Washington signee Katie Colard, who had 13 points on 3-of-19 shooting.

"Kelli did a fantastic job," said Prosser coach Mark Little. "But everyone chipped in to help. We played good team defense."

WSU signee Brandi Thomas, a 6-foot post, did most of the damage for Elma with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

With Thomas scoring 12 first-half points, Elma led 30-28 at halftime, but Prosser took control midway through the third quarter with a 10-0 run.

Rachel Anderson started it with a putback, and Jones had a steal and layup to put Prosser on top for good 34-32 with 5:30 left in the third quarter.

Jones added a three-point play and Hunt buried a 3-pointer from the right corner to push the lead to 40-32.

Elma got within 42-41, but the Mustangs weathered the run and pushed the lead back to 54-45 with 5 minutes to play on Petersen's pullup jumper from the right elbow.

Hunt's driving 4-footer through three defenders with 53 seconds left was the final dagger, giving Prosser a 59-53 lead.

Petersen hit 3 of 4 free throws to ice the win.

"We buckled down when we needed to tonight, with lots of people coming through," Petersen said.