MCC/GSL girls: Richland hangs on for win over Lewis and Clark

Kamri von Oelhoffen hit the game-winning layup for the last of her team-high 24 points with six seconds remaining, and the Richland High School girls basketball team won a 74-72 nail-biter over visiting Lewis and Clark on Friday in a Mid-Columbia Conference-Greater Spokane League sub-regional first-round game.

“That was a stressful game,” Richland coach Cindy McCoy said, “but it was fun.”

Richland will travel to GSL No. 1 Central Valley — which beat Pasco 74-27 on Friday — at 4 p.m. Saturday in the winner’s bracket second round. Lewis and Clark will host Pasco at 5 p.m in a loser-out game.

Friday’s game featured 11 ties and 25 lead changes. The biggest separation came when Richland used a 9-2 run in the third quarter to eventually go up 58-51, but Lewis and Clark (12-9) answered with three of its six 3-pointers in the first 1:15 of the fourth quarter to go back up.

Richland (11-9) started to make a move again in the fourth, when it trailed 64-62 with 4:15 to play. On consecutive possessions, Von Oelhoffen knocked down a 3-pointer — her second in as many attempts — and Maysun Wellsandt had a three-point play to put the Bombers up by four with 2:30 to go.

But the Tigers fought back again, going on a 6-2 run to tie it at 72-all, which set up von Oelhoffen’s game-winning bucket.

“We’ve had some tough times with tight games. We haven’t really been able to finish,” McCoy said. “It’s really a big win, and the girls are really pumped, so that’s important.”

The teams were tied at 33-all after one of the most dead-even first halves of the season. Neither team led by more than three points at any time or went on a run of more than 5-0.

The matchup to watch the entire game was Lewis and Clark’s Jacinta Buckley against von Oelhoffen, as the two were defending each other for most of the night and combined to score 53 points (Buckley had a game-high of 29) on 21-of-30 shooting.

“They’re very similar types of players too, so it’s fun even though Buckley’s got a little size on her,” McCoy said. “Kamri did a lot of things for us, and Buckley’s a really tough player. And L-C did a great job of using their personnel against us, so give them a lot of credit.”

Von Oelhoffen measures 5-foot-9 to Buckley’s 6-foot. Buckley also had a game-high nine rebounds.

This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 7:28 PM with the headline "MCC/GSL girls: Richland hangs on for win over Lewis and Clark."