A bounce-back win

Lindsay Schnell is still a little embarrassed about sleeping through practice on Monday.

Schnell, an assistant coach for the Corvallis High girls basketball team, couldn’t believe she missed a practice the day before a game.

But you can’t really fault her for the slip up. She had spent the previous night working on school work, then showed up at the high school at 7 a.m. to help the players work on their shooting, something they all needed after such a dismal performance in Friday night’s 51-49 overtime loss against Crescent Valley.

So maybe she missed practice, but the extra shooting seemed to come in handy as the Spartans hit 9 of 12 3-pointers and totally dominated West Albany on Tuesday night, 65-43, to improve to 2-1 in the Mid-Willamette Conference.

It was a much needed win for the Spartans, who were still feeling the effects of the blown lead and painful loss on Friday night to their crosstown rivals.

McKenzie Redberg and Gabe Johnson, who each took Friday’s loss hard, rebounded with standout games.

Redberg hit four 3s and finished with a game-high 18 points. The smile on her face after the game was a stark contrast to the anger she exhibited four days earlier.

Johnson shook off the most frustrating shooting game of her career with 15 points, but she also had several nice passes that led to easy baskets by Eva Oriakhi down low and others.

“Everyone knows about Gabe so when she’s doubleteamed its so much easier to pop out and get open,” Redberg said. “And now she trusts us to knock shots down and the pressure isn’t all on her.”

The Spartans didn’t let the loss to CV affect them early as they came out and bolted to a 20-10 lead after the first quarter.

“I thought right off the bat we brought intensity and really pressured them in the fullcourt,” coach Joe Williamson said. “And, to me, really got them out of their tempo. They were shooting shots in a hurry.”

The Spartans doubled the Bulldogs at 32-16 before West Albany closed the half on a 10-3 run to cut it to 35-26 at the half.

Williamson had a few words for his team at the break.

“I told them that we had to stop fouling and move our feet on defense and take care of the basketball and stop throwing bad passes,” he said.

Mission accomplished in the third quarter.

Like they did late in the third quarter and through the first 7:30 of the fourth quarter against CV, the Spartans looked unstoppable both on offense and defense. CHS used a 22-4 run in the third quarter that broke the game open.

“I feel like we had a rough first half but we came out really strong in the second half and we really blew them out so there wasn’t a chance of them coming back,” Oriakhi said.

It was a much-needed win and one the Spartans can build off of as they hit the road to face winless South Albany on Friday. Then comes the showdown at home on Monday against Silverton, which is also 2-1 after falling to Crescent Valley on Tuesday.

“We should have beat CV and this just shows that we can,” Redberg said. “It’s good to have this going into Friday and especially Monday against Silverton. That confidence with a winning record definitely helps.”

Williamson is happy with the way the Spartans are playing and with how they responded from Friday’s tough loss.

“I think we are playing good basketball,” he said. “Against Crescent Valley we just didn’t hit shots and tonight we did hit shots.”

Corvallis 65, West Albany 43
WEST ALBANY 10 16 4 13 — 43
CORVALLIS 20 15 22 8 — 65
West Albany: Jaclyn Silsby 12, Grady 10, Sitton 9, Kastrava 7, Hortsch 4, Martin 1, Lepman, Johnston, Jamison, Lukins, Riley
Corvallis: McKenzie Redberg 18, Johnson 15, Oriakhi 10, Schrock 9, Kar. Laney 5, Seitz 3, Adams 3, Gerner 2, Hendrickson, Westly, W. Redberg, Kay. Laney
JV: West Albany 48, Corvallis 39
Frosh: West Albany 42, Corvallis 40