PASCO — Each time the Columbia Basin College women's basketball team plays, it seems to come up with a scheme to win.
A few weeks ago, the Hawks hammered 3s en route to beating Walla Walla. Last week, they used inside scoring and defense to rout Treasure Valley.
On Wednesday night, against visiting Wenatchee Valley, it was full-court defensive pressure.
CBC forced 24 turnovers and turned them into 33 points on its way to beating the Knights 78-51 in an East Region game. The win raises CBC's record to 4-0 in East Region play and 15-0 overall.
The game was never close. The Hawks used their defense to jump out to a 13-2 lead and never looked back.
"That's our main goal: to get them frustrated," said CBC's Trishi Williams, who scored a game-high 14 points and had seven rebounds and six turnovers.
CBC coach Cheryl Holden, when asked whether it's hard to find something about which to criticize her team, had mixed feelings.
"Yes and no," she said. "Yes to you, but no to the players. They do a good job. But I want to see how somebody shuts us down."
The Hawks might get that chance Saturday, as they travel to Yakima Valley.
As for Wednesday's win, CBC led 44-24 at halftime. Holden told her players to keep working hard, and they did.
"We just focused on the things we needed to fix and to get better out there," Williams said.
Again, CBC got balanced scoring. Sharaysa Stewart had 13 points, and Tiffany Idler and Ana Jimenez each had 11.
"We don't run our offense for just one person," Holden said. "If a player has the open shot, they need to take it."
Williams agreed.
"Anybody on this team can score," she said. "I think we are a great team."
Shay Grilley led Wenatchee Valley (1-3, 8-8) with 13 points. Southridge High grad Erica Colter added eight points.
WENATCHEE MEN 61, CBC 51: CBC coach Rolando Garcia looked at the other team's bench and saw his past in Wenatchee Valley coach Coby Weidenbach.
"Coby was my ball boy when I was in college," said Garcia, who spent two years at CBC before finishing his collegiate playing career at Northwest Nazarene University, where he was coached by Coby's dad, Ed Weidenbach.
"I haven't been in this gym since 2002," said Coby, who played for CBC back then.
Now, he runs the show at Wenatchee and his father is an assistant. He also put a good game plan together to beat the Hawks.
"We knew we had some size on CBC," Weidenbach said. "But we lost the rebound battle in the first half. Our bigs stepped up in the second half."
The Knights (2-2, 8-6) trailed 23-16 with 5:45 to play in the first half. But an 11-4 run to finish the half -- keyed by two field goals from Jake Peterson -- left the game tied at 27-27 at intermission.
In the second half, though, Weidenbach had his guards get the ball down low to post players Sean Counley and Charlie Hoffman. The two keyed a 13-2 run, giving Wenatchee a 44-34 lead.
CBC (2-2, 5-10) never recovered. They did get the deficit down to five points at one time, but the Knights kept sinking free throws.
"There comes a point in time during the season where we have to come together as a team," said Garcia. "They were a much more disciplined team than we are. We just didn't execute the game plan."
One statistic that stood out was CBC's nine free throws, compared to Wenatchee's 30.
"That's nine times today and eight against Blue Mountain (in another loss last Saturday)," Garcia said. "You can't win too many games that way."
Kellen Drake finished with 12 points to lead the Knights, while Jordon Poynor had 16 to pace CBC.
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