Published: February 02, 2010 11:48 pm      

Bruins outlast Cadets

LIZTON — It wasn’t pretty, but the Tri-West girls’ basketball team got the job done Tuesday night against Cascade.

The Bruins trailed for most of the game — falling behind by as many as 10 points — but used a strong fourth quarter to pull out a 55-51 victory.

The night before, Tri-West held on for a draining one-point win over Crawfordsville.

“Every win is a good win, but I knew last night took a lot out of us,” Tri-West coach Brad Acton said. “It was an emotional win against Crawfordsville, and I knew tonight was going to be tough. Cascade’s going to be one of the better opponents in our sectional.”

Sam Ricks scored 19 points to lead the Bruins (16-3), who won their sixth straight game, and 13th of their last 14.

The Bruins withstood a huge night from Cascade’s Alex Morgan. Morgan finished with 29 points and 11 rebounds, and also became the school’s all-time leading scorer.

“She can score,” Cascade coach Don Helmick said. “She’s hard to guard and when we’ve got (Alyssa) Suter out there, you’ve got to guard them both.”

Tri-West appeared to be in control early. The Bruins jumped out to an 8-2 lead and remained in front 17-15 after one.

But then they went cold.

Tri-West shot just 2-of-11 from the floor in the second quarter. Cascade scored 12 unanswered points to open the period, and led 29-23 at halftime.

Morgan scored 10 points in the third, but the Bruins continued to claw back, trimming the deficit to 41-36 heading into the fourth.

Two three-point daggers from Katie Robertson helped the Bruins finally break through in the fourth quarter.

Robertson buried a three-pointer with 4:35 to play that tied it up at 47-47. A minute later, she knocked down another shot from beyond the arc that gave the Bruins the lead for good.

“She hit some huge shots when we really needed a basket,” Acton said. “Just about anyone on the floor is capable at any time of giving us a spark.”

Down 53-51 with 12 seconds left, Cascade had one final possession to force overtime.

But Krista Powell’s shot was off target, and Tri-West’s Megan Bennett sealed the victory with two free throws.

“I don’t really think we ran out of gas,” Helmick said. “We were getting good looks, we just didn’t hit the shots.”

kevin.leibrock@flyergroup.com