The Wilsonville girl’s basketball team had struggled with the Sherwood Bowmen in recent years. On a brisk December 14th night, the Wildcats had an opportunity at home to avenge their loss to Sherwood two years ago.
Wilsonville going into the battle had an incredible size advantage with Sherwood junior post Ava Heiden sidelined due to injury. Heiden, the 6’4″ Iowa girls basketball commit was a force in the Wildcats previous ’bout with Sherwood just two years ago.
Sherwood won that game 40-25 on December 7th, 2021 at Wilsonville.
In this match, both squads came out firing from deep with Gabi Moultrie of Wilsonville and Kylie Yamanaka of Sherwood landing shots early.
From there, both teams went cold from the field. However, Wilsonville with the tremendous size advantage had multiple second-chance opportunities and was provided second-chance layups and free throws to extend their lead to 5 points at halftime.
Sophomore Fareeda ElManhawy junior Audrey Counts and Payton Ratcliffe were the most abundant in the offensive rebound takeover.
At halftime, Sherwood had such a large number of turnovers that it was surprising they were still so close with the Wildcats. On the other hand, Wilsonville missed many free throws when allowed to pull away.
In the next 14 minutes of the second half, the game followed a similar pattern. Wilsonville continued to take advantage of their size in the rebounding game. Sherwood on the other hand, was ice cold from the field with a majority of their shots taken from behind the arc. On top of that, the Wilsonville defense continued to force multiple turnovers in the second half.
Wilsonville led Sherwood 34-24 with just over 2 minutes left in the game.
All of a sudden, Sherwood flipped a switch. Sherwood couldn’t miss. The most impressive of Sherwood’s array of shots was Sabrina Flowers’ 26-foot shot with under a minute left in the game to shrink the Wilsonville lead.
Sherwood called a timeout with just .8 seconds on the game clock down 1 point when Wilsonville’s in-bounder on the baseline accidentally stepped over the baseline resulting in a turnover.
Sherwood then got a shot up with .8 seconds left in the game. Sherwood was set to inbound the ball underneath the hoop when senior Tali Sanders was left open in the corner. Sanders got the shot off in time and the ball was rolling in, before falling out of the hoop at the buzzer.
Wilsonville got away with a 39-38 avenging win over Sherwood thanks to the comfortable 10-point lead earned before Sherwood got hot.
The Wilsonville girl’s basketball team next plays Monday 12/18 vs. the Silverton Foxes at Corban University in Salem at the Capitol City Classic.