By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer
January 9, 2008

Don’t look now, but the Hood River Valley girls basketball team isn’t rebuilding – it’s competing.

Fielding their usual young lineup, the Eagles erased an eight-point fourth quarter deficit to beat the Sandy Pioneers 38-34 Friday night at Vannet Court.

“We wanted it really bad this time,” Eagles guard Meagan Clark said. “We were tired of working so hard and not having anything to show for it.”

Heading into the game the Eagles had lost seven straight, with three of them coming by margins of six points or less.

Clark helped set the tone for that trend to change. With the Eagles behind by three as the clock ran down in the first quarter, Clark heaved up a shot from near half court that banked in to tie the game.

While the momentum really did not begin to swing HRV’s way until much later, that shot set the tone for the Eagles to make their own luck in the fourth quarter.

Sandy used an 11-0 run in the third quarter to seemingly take control of the game, but then things began to fall apart in the fourth thanks to a tenacious effort by the Eagle defense.

“We picked up a little on the pressure,” Eagles coach Phil Hukari said. “We went from a trapping zone to a man-to-man and they started missing shots.”

Forty seconds into the final quarter, Hukari drew a technical foul for arguing an official’s foul call against Audrey Mallon.

At the other end of the floor, Sandy’s Dalton Meade hit one of her two technical foul free throws. It would be the only point the Pioneers would score in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles’ rally began in earnest with just over four minutes to play, when Jody Kunigal stole a Sandy pass, and fed the ball to Meagan Clark, who hit a short jumper to pull the Eagles within five points. Rachel Perry and Audrey Mallon quickly followed with jump shots of their own to pull within 34-33.

After another turnover, Kunigal came up with her only field goal of the night, but it was a big one. She hit a three-pointer from the right corner with 2:30 to play to give the Eagles a lead that they would not relinquish.

The Eagles were able to force several turnovers in the final minutes, including Jaclyn Bryant getting a jump ball call underneath the Sandy basket after a Sandy player got an offensive rebound, and hit a few free throws to wrap up their first home win of the season.

Hukari did not want to call the slide stopping win a key victory so early in the season, but said that it showed his team can compete with any conference opponent on a good night.

“I don’t know who we are supposed to beat anymore,” he said. “If we stay with a team we have a good chance.”

One of the keys to the HRV win was the play of its post players. The Sandy defense forced the Eagles to pass the ball down to the low post throughout the game, and the Eagles rose to the occasion. Rachel Perry scored nine points to lead the Eagles, while Angie Titus, playing a whole game with the varsity squad because of an injury to Rachael Mallon, scored seven.

Audrey Mallon also got involved in the post play and scored seven points as well.

Sandy’s Sarah Sturges led all scorers with 12 points while Cheryl Neumann added 10 points.

The Eagles’ scheduled game against Reynolds was postponed to today due to snow and the team travels to Centennial on Friday.

Freshmen: The HRV girls freshmen team beat Sandy 29-23 behind 10 points from Amber Edwards and six from Wendy Stearns.