Patience pays off for Trojan girls

Is patience a virtue? The answer depends on whether you root for the Orland High girls basketball team, or if you suit up for it.

Most in the packed house that witnessed the Trojans' 51-50 triumph over visiting Anderson Friday would rather the girls weren't quite as virtuous. For the Lady Trojans, however, patience has a been a key contributor to their overall success.

"Our goal going into every game has been to play as hard as we can for the first 3 1/2 quarters of the game, and then look at the scoreboard and play out the game as the situation calls for," said Orland coach Adam Reimers.

The situation was looking a tad bleak to many when Orland fell behind 36-24 early in the third quarter, and even more so when they were behind 45-37 in the fourth, but then the lady Trojans started their push.

Sophie Wackerman got a friendly bounce off the rim and in to trim the deficit to 47-43 with just over three minutes remaining, and Taylor Miller then scored off a Molly Sathongnoth steal to cut it to just a basket.

Anderson then turned the ball over on a traveling call, and Wackerman drove the baseline for a hoop that brought the two sides seven at 47-47 with 2:18 to play.

Sathongnoth then swiped the ensuing inbound pass and went up for two to put Orland back in the lead, and Wackerman nailed a pair of free throws with 28 seconds remaining to make it 51-47.

Anderson's Emma Peters landed the last of her five 3-pointers to cut the lead to one, but after taking the ball out on the side with 2.6 seconds left, Anderson was not able to get the ball in cleanly.

"There have been very few games where we have led from beginning to end, and this mentality has kept us from panicking when we have fallen behind," Reimers said.

"We knew we had overcome that sort of deficit before against good teams, and that Anderson had blown big leads throughout the season," he added.

Wackerman finished with a team-high 16 points, Sathongnoth put up 14, and Mollee Barr added 11, all of hers coming in the second half.

"I knew we could pull through and get back in it," said the senior forward. We all realized that once the game started, that we had a good chance to make it to the sections."

Reimers also pointed out the play of Miller, for playing hard on defense, boxing out and rebounding, and taking care of the ball; and also JV call-up Laeyla Ealy, for playing well in the team concept and coming up with all four of her rebounds in the pivotal fourth quarter.

The Trojans took to the road Tuesday for a match-up with top-seeded Central Valley in Shasta Lake.

Craig Purcell is sports editor for Tri-County Newspapers. Contact him at 824-1036 or cpurcell@tcnpress.com.

Orland 51, Anderson 50

Anderson 14 16 13 7 -50

Orland 15 6 13 17 -51

Anderson (50): Peters, 17; English, 13; Leitem, 10; Hawkins, 4; Wilson, 3; Boswell, 2; Noble, 1

Orland (51): Wackerman, 16; Sathongnoth, 13; Barr, 11; Miller, 4; Ealy, 3; Lohse, 2; Bradford, 2