Emma Myers ties season-high with 30 points, Ridgeline girls pull away from Ferris; Falcons boys hold off Saxons
Ridgeline point guard Emma Myers passes as Ferris point guard Hailey Orton defends from behind on Friday at Ferris High School. (COLIN MULVANY)
Like it or not, the Ridgeline girls are on a collision course with undefeated Central Valley for the Greater Spokane League title and seeding in the District 6 tournament. Every game on the way is another step toward that showdown, the last regular-season game on the schedule on Feb. 7 at CV.
Entering play Friday, Central Valley was ranked No. 1 in 3A in the state’s RPI system; Ridgeline was No. 5.
But Friday’s task at hand was Ferris – with the return from injury of all-league guard Kayla Jones. Ferris provided Ridgeline some competition in the first half, but Emma Myers took over the game in the third.
Myers tied a season high with 30 points, 20 in the second half, with eight rebounds and the visiting Falcons pulled away from the Saxons 68-41 in a GSL 4A/3A game.
Madi Crowley scored 15 points with a dozen boards for Ridgeline. Jones, who missed the first 12 games of the season with a knee injury, led Ferris with 15 points.
Ridgeline led by just four points at halftime, and coach Freddie Rehkow wasn’t happy.
This is the first season that Ridgeline has had any expectation of success, and the Falcons are still learning how to win.
“I think it opened their eyes,” Rehkow said of the narrow halftime lead. “I’ve been telling them that we’ve been knocking on the door trying to be a great team. But the problem is we keep knocking on the door, and then we’re running away. We’ve got to stick around and see what’s there.”
Rehkow’s halftime talk was simple.
“My message to them was, ‘Playing like that will not get you into the playoffs, and even if you do get there, it won’t get you through,’ ” he said.
“I think maybe we thought that we could take this in the beginning, and that’s not what happened at all,” Myers said. “We need to come in focused. We focused after halftime and that helped us turn it around.”
Myers has become a reliable scoring option for the Falcons, averaging 16.0 points per game entering play.
“The second half, we started settling down, running our offense, getting some good looks,” Rehkow said. “And then, that’s the thing about Emma – when she gets everybody in their spaces and they starting doing things and she can move the ball, that’s when we started flowing. And that’s what opened it up for her.”
Ridgeline (14-2, 5-0) scored the first 12 points of the game, then Jones nailed a couple of 3-pointers to get the Saxons back in it. Crowley scored nine in the quarter and the Falcons led 19-11 after one.
Jones and Elyse Wevers hit 3-pointers early in the second quarter to draw the Saxons (5-11, 2-3) within 23-19. Jones hit a pull-up jumper with 5 seconds left and Ridgeline led 27-24 at halftime.
Much like the first quarter, the Falcons came out of halftime with purpose, scoring the first nine points of the third to open up a double-digit lead. Myers made a layup on a backdoor cut and Ridgeline led 48-28 entering the fourth. Myers scored 12 points in the period and Ridgeline outscored the Saxons 21-4 .
“We all needed to pick it up as a team,” Myers said “It was definitely a slow start for everybody.”
“First half, I was not impressed,” Rehkow said. “I thought we were kind of walking through the motions. Kudos to Ferris. They kept fighting, fighting, fighting, and they wanted it a little bit more once they got rolling. But second half, we’re going to make sure that we took care of business.”
Myers continued her domination in the fourth quarter, scoring another 10 before being lifted with 2:15 to go.
“I thought we stepped up (in the second half) and played with a lot more intensity and a lot more focus,” Rehkow said. “If they play like that for 32 minutes and not just 10, we’ll be OK.”
Boys
Ridgeline 76, Ferris 68: Caden Andreas scored 22 points, Brayden Allen added 17 points with eight rebounds and the visiting Falcons (7-9, 3-2) beat the Saxons (6-10, 2-3).
Ridgeline jumped out to a 23-7 lead after the first quarter and held off the Saxons down the stretch.
Freshman Cole Floyd led Ferris with 20 points and nine rebounds. Boston Hess scored 13 points and Luke Roland added 12 points and 10 boards for the Saxons.