Lady Leopards Draw Freeman
Senior Megan McIntyre (left) and Junior MacKenzie Taylor (right) run an inbounds drill during practice recently. Taylor is the younger sister of Scotties 22 year old coach Ashlee Taylor (back to camera) Photos courtesy of spokesman.com
The Lady Leopards will start the WIAA 1A Basketball Tournament on Wednesday at 7:30 PM with highly touted North East A League champion Freeman. The Lady Scots lone loss this season was to Lakeside 54-47 on January 12 at Spokane Valley Hub. The Spokane Valley Hub has served as Freeman’s home gym this season due to construction work at their school. As a matter of fact, the Scotties haven’t even had a school this year, they are currently crammed into the middle school along with the 7th and 8th graders while their new school is being completed. Freeman has since beat Lakeside in their gym by 2 and in the district tourney by 13 points. Zillah lost to Lakeside 36-20 in the midst of a 5 game losing streak dating from mid-December until early January. It was after they bounced back from that losing streak that the Lady Leopards seemed to start turning the corner on their tremendous second half of the season.
Last year’s 3rd place team, lost to eventual champion Seattle Christian 43-42 in the semifinals of the 2009 tourney. Zillah last met Freeman in 2008 in a 5th/8th place game, which Freeman won 49-42. Freeman’s coach Ashlee Taylor was a Senior in their 2005 meeting, also a Scotties victory 50-37, they would eventually lose to Colfax in the championship game that year.
This year the Scotties are scoring an average of just over 55 points per game, while giving up just over 33 points per game. Freeman relies heavily on its pressure defense, forcing turnovers and creating easy scoring opportunities. Twenty-two year old Ashlee Taylor in her second year as the Scotties coach has amassed 48 wins and suffered just 2 losses as a head coach.
Freeman’s leading scorers are Seniors Megan McIntyre (5’11″ – 11.5 ppg) and Korina Baker (5’7″ – 11.7 ppg). Junior (5’9″) MacKenzie Taylor averages 9 points per game and 5’7″ Sophomore Alyssa Maine averages 5.7 per game, but any of the four are capable of scoring over 20 in a contest. McIntyre, Baker and Maine have all had 20+ point nights this season, Taylor’s season high is 18. Their Senior point-guard is 5’5″ Morghan Poirier, she averages 6.3 points per game with a season high of 10. Freshman Molly McIntyre (5’9″) has seen signifigant playing time this season averaging 5 points per game with a season high of 17.
