On Thursday, February 21st I traveled to Wells Fargo Arena (ASU) and watched the semi-final playoffs for the Division-I State Tournament, which featured the #1 seed St. Mary’s Knights versus the #5 seed Hamilton Huskies.
Watching the St. Mary’s girls team is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters, as you know the outcome about 95% of the time before the game starts, but you are having so much fun watching the talent level, that you don’t really care about the outcome.
That was the case in this one, as they were up by around 15 points the entire game. The first quarter score was 27 to 10. The Lady Knights went on a 15-0 run to close out the period - breaking the hearts of the Huskies.
At the half, the score was 44 to 27 with 6-foot junior guard Courtney Ekmark (UCONN commit) scoring 11 points, along with 6-foot-2 senior post Chantel Osahor (Univ. of Washington signee) and 5-foot-7 senior guard Chloe Johnson (San Diego State signee) with 8 points each.
Hamilton's 5-foot-10 senior guard Kyndall Adams had 8 points, and 5-foot-9 junior track star Ashlee Moore had 7 points for Hamilton.
The third quarter was the same, as the quarter ended with a 62 to 45 score, and the Knights finishing off the Huskies with a score of 74 to 55 for an impressive victory.
Hamilton's Adams and 5-foot-8 junior guard Shelby Hartman finished with 12 points each, along with Ashlee Moore who had 13 points in the loss for the Huskies.
The entire St. Mary’s team was outstanding, led by Ekmark’s 25 points. 5-foot-11 senior guard Brandee Walton (New Mexico State signee) finished with 13 points, while the “point-center” Chantel Osahor had 13 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks in the win. Osahor is an impressive player, as she is skilled to shoot the 3-ball, and then will throw a beautiful pass to a teammate through traffic.
I think Hamilton will be good again next year, as they have a good freshman group. Plus Moore and Hartman will be back for one more year.
#1 seed St. Mary’s will take on the #3 seed Pinnacle Pioneers in the State Finals on Saturday @ Jobing.com arena at 2:00PM.
