Jan. 26, 2007

By MATT TUNSETH/ Frontiersman

WASILLA - It didn't take the Wasilla girls basketball squad long to heat up in Tuesday's 49-32 win over the visiting Colony Knights. Shelby Fulton and Hillarie Putnam saw to that, nailing back-to-back three-point baskets early in the first quarter to electrify the home crowd and establish Wasilla's dominance from the outset.

“I think the first half worked well for us,” Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax said following the game, the Warriors' 80th-consecutive Northern Lights Conference victory.

Wasilla opened with a 16-6 lead after the first eight minutes of play, then used a stifling full-court press to frustrate the Knights in the second.

Colony only managed two points in the second quarter as Wasilla cruised to a 19-point halftime lead.

“We definitely didn't handle (the press) as well as we could have,” Colony head coach Don Witzel said.

In the second half, Wasilla used its superior size inside to finish off the Knights. Time and time again, the Warriors lobbed the ball in to forward Jessica Carter for easy buckets. Carter scored eight of her 10 points in the second half.

Witzel conceded the strategy was a good one against his undersized ballclub.

“We're not real deep in the post area,” he said.

Colony played well in the second half, at one point cutting the lead to 36-22 in the third quarter on a three-pointer by Maria Bowker. But that would be as close as the Knights would get as Wasilla continued to pound the ball inside to close out the

victory.

Hayley Hotchkiss led all scorers with 11 points for Colony, while Bowker finished with eight and Allie Grazulis added six.

Jenna Johnson also had 10 points for the Warriors, Fulton scored nine and Putnam and Anne Wesser each chipped in six.

Wesser had a strong game distributing the ball for Wasilla, racking up eight assists. Wasilla did well passing the ball as a team, getting assists on 18 of their 21 field goals.

Hebert-Truax said it was important for her team to come out and play well against their crosstown rivals.

“It's always nice to beat Colony, always nice to win a conference game and to get a win in front of your home crowd,” she said.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth

@frontiersman.com