By Matt Tasler/sportsreporter@trcle.com
GODLEY — Tralyn Hardin, Godley Christmas Tournament’s most valuable player, scored 23 points in Itasca’s 81-67 win over host team Godley in Saturday’s championship game.
The Wampus Cats hit four 3-pointers in the first quarter to take a 32-21 lead at the end of one period.
Itasca stretched the lead to 49-34 at the half and outscored the Wildcats 20-14 in the third quarter to take its largest lead of the night, 69-48, into the final eight minutes of the contest.
“Itasca’s a good team and they really showed it tonight,” Godley head coach Jonathan Normand said. “We didn’t back down, but when they’re shooting like that it’s tough to handle them. Defensively I thought we were playing well, they were just making tough shot after tough shot. And 21 on our end’s not bad [in the first quarter], but like I said, they were on fire.”
Godley (11-6) didn’t throw in the towel in the fourth, however, opening the period with a 10-0 run to close to within 69-58 with 5:40 to play.
Hardin answered with a 3-pointer and was fouled on the play, but he missed the free throw to leave the score at 72-58.
After a Rowdy Allen jumper, the Wampus Cats scored the next four points to push the lead to 76-60 and Godley was only able to cut the gap to 11, at 78-67, before Itasca hit 3-of-4 free throws in the final seconds to close out the victory.
“They’ve got a few that can really hit them at all times,” Normand said of Itasca’s 3-point proficiency. “Tonight it seemed like they were all hitting them. We tried to stretch [the defense] out on a couple of them and we tried not to on others, but the others came through for them also. That became a tough plan for us.”
In addition to Hardin’s 23 points, Itasca got 10 from Desmond Guy.
Guy was selected to the all tournament team, along with Allen and Jake Williams from Godley.
“I told the kids just now that I think we got better in the second half,” Normand said. “They had 49 at halftime and ended up with right around 80, so that’s 30 points in the second half. Against a good offensive team, there’s no reason to hang our heads on that. I think we got better in the second half, got some confidence and going into district that’s going to help us.”
Lipan’s Seth Riddle and Santo’s Keaton Mata rounded out the all-tournament team.
Allen led Godley with 16 points in the title game, while Williams and Blake Steed finished with 14 points each.
Dylan Benge scored nine for the Wildcats and Riley Good added eight.
