Garden City buries Allen

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Garden City, KS-It's scary to think what Garden City will look like once they put a full 40 minutes together. On Saturday, half of that was more than enough.

Kealani Neves returned from a one-game absence to score 11 points in 17 minutes off the bench, Alexis Smith chipped in eight, and Garden City rebounded from Wednesday's loss to Independence with a 62-37 shellacking of Allen at Conestoga Arena.

"I'm glad we were able to finish this game, but we have to play a lot better moving forward," Head Coach, Antwain Scales said. "In that first half, Allen gave us all we wanted. We couldn't contest shots, and they were shooting lights out."

Allen, which entered Saturday's tilt having lost 17 straight road contests, were game early. Addison Towe canned back-to-back 3-pointers, and the Red Devils had a 17-11 advantage late in the opening period. They were up four going to the second.

"We just couldn't find our man at times," Scales explained. "That's something you have to address and correct if you want to compete in this conference."

The Broncbusters eventually found their footing in the second. Aerihna Afoa knocked down a 3-pointer, and Britney Mapang wiggled all the way to the rim, capping off a 12-0 surge that had Garden City up 23-17 with 4:23 remaining in the half. Then, in the waning seconds of the period, Smith put her stamp on the game, scoring six straight points-all on layups to give the Broncbusters a 31-21 advantage at the intermission.

"Alexis is a grinder," Scales said. "She hustles and gives us energy. But I'll say this, you don't win games by showing up on gameday, you win them by showing up to practice."

 fter the two teams exchanged swings in the third quarter, Garden City buried the Red Devils in the fourth. They limited Allen to 2-of-14 (14 percent) from the field and forced four turnovers over the final 10 minutes. On the other end, Neves hit a jumper followed by three free throws, Mapang got inside for an easy layup, and Garden City rattled off the game's final 16 points. Allen didn't score the final 7:05 of the fourth.

"We have to play at a high level, no matter who we're facing," Scales said. "We're entering a stretch now where' we're playing every other day. So, we have to be mentally prepared for that."

Mapang finished with eight points off the bench for Garden City, which avenged last year's five-point loss in Iola. Justis Odom tallied six points and five boards.

Hallie Reed paced the Red Devils with 10 points in 31 minutes. She was the lone Allen player in double figures.

Next up: Garden City at Pratt-Monday, Feb. 22-5:30 p.m.