For the first time since 2003, the Mitchell girls basketball team will play for the championship of the Western Trails Conference Tournament.
The fifth-seeded Tigers punched their ticket to the title game after cruising to a 46-31 win over top-seeded Morrill in the semifinals on Friday afternoon at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff.
"This is definitely exciting for the girls, the school and for our community," said first-year Mitchell coach Kenna Hubbard, who was a member of the last Tigers' team to win the conference tournament back in 2002. "These girls are finding more confidence in themselves each game. We had a dogfight against Hemingford [in the first round Thursday] so I was a little worried about how our legs would be today. But we came out and ran the floor well. I couldn't be more proud."
The Tigers will battle Kimball for the tournament championship today at 6 p.m. Kimball survived Bridgeport 41-34 in double overtime in Friday's other semifinal game.
Mitchell, which never trailed, took any potential drama out of the game in the opening half by building a commanding 27-9 lead at halftime. A pair of uncontested 3-pointers by Havannah Newens off well-executed, in-bounds plays gave the Tigers an early charge.
Newens, who led Mitchell in scoring with 14 points, scored the first five points of the second quarter to spark the Tigers on a 16-0 run. Chalsey Grentz poured in eight points in the frame, including two treys. The last of which gave Mitchell its comfortable 18-point advantage at intermission.
"The way we played in the first and second quarter was probably the best we've played all season long," Hubbard said. "We told our girls to go out and play relaxed and shoot the ball with confidence. I thought they did that very well."
Things continued to spiral in the favor of Mitchell in the third quarter as the Tigers pushed their lead to as many as 25 at the five-minute mark. Three pointers by Liz Cunningham and Grentz helped Mitchell to its biggest advantage, which ended any comeback hopes by the Lions.
"I thought we played a really complete game," Hubbard said. "Morrill has a strong team and we were fortunate to build a big lead like we did. Our girls also had some great defensive stops. I just felt like we played a pretty complete game."
Grentz joined Newens in the double-figure scoring column for Mitchell with 13 points. Cunningham added nine points.
Andee Grentz led the Tigers on the glass with 10 rebounds. She also led Mitchell defensively with three steals and a pair of blocks. Also for Mitchell on the boards, Newens had nine, Chalsey Grentz grabbed six and Cunningham tracked down five.
Alex Howell finished with a double-double performance of 10 points and 10 rebounds for Morrill. Kady Lower also tallied 10 rebounds, while Morgan Nortness had five. Howell collected a pair of steals.
Morrill finished the game shooting 8 of 16 at the free-throw line, while Mitchell was 6 of 19.
Today's championship game will feature the two schools with the most conference tournament championships in the girls division. Mitchell leads the way with seven titles and Kimball has five. The Longhorns are 3-0 against Mitchell this season.
Morrill will play Bridgeport in today's consolation game at 4:15 p.m.
Mitchell (10-10).....................7 20 11 8 - 46
Morrill (12-4)......................3 6 10 12 - 31
MITCHELL
Liz Cunningham 9, Chalsey Grentz 13, Brianne Hessler 1, Havannah Newens 14, Andee Grentz 5, Nicole Houston 4.
MORRILL
Taylor Cooper 4, Brittany Zwiebel 6, Sabrina Austin 3, Kady Lower 6, Alex Howell 10, Mickayla Schnieder 2.
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
