Bittersweet Ending: Women’s basketball team falls to Spokane in Sweet 16

Linn-Benton women’s basketball team put up an admirable effort in the sweet 16 of the Northwest Athletic Conference playoffs this past weekend in Everett, Washington. The Roadrunners faced off against the Spokane Sasquatch on Saturday, March 11. Unfortunately, due to seeding, the Roadrunners had to face off against a red-hot Spokane team that finished their season 14-2 and number one in their division. The final score was 70-57 in a game that the Roadrunners kept competitive until the very end.

LB was able to make this a tight game all the way up until the fourth quarter. At the end of the third the score was 46-42 in favor of Spokane. The name of the game seemed to be defense, as both teams finished sub-50 percent on field goals with LB finishing with only 36 percent for the game while holding Spokane to 44.

The fourth quarter is where the game started to slowly slip away, as the Roadrunners were outscored 24-15; the team just couldn’t get into a scoring rhythm. Leading scorers for LB were Kasey Anderson, Courteney Landis, and Molly Aranda who finished with 16, 11, and 10 respectively.

Spokane was led by a dominating performance by sophomore Brianna King who finished the game with 26 points along with five rebounds. All in all, the fact that the team was able to keep the game close against such a dominant opponent was exciting to watch, even if the outcome wasn’t a win.

In only the second season back since the program was dropped in 2013 the women’s team was able to finish the season 9-7 in league and 16-13 overall. With eight freshmen on this team’s roster, the Roadrunners should be able to take this season’s experience and build upon it for success next year.

Story by Nick Fields

Photo by Elliot Pond