Lady Wildcats enter at #4 exit at #3

A three-day, three-game showing brought the Fleming Lady Wildcats home from the 1A State Basketball Tournament a spot higher than they entered. The Lady Wildcats held the fourth seed entering the bracket and exited with a third place trophy last Saturday at the Bank of Colorado Butler-Hancock Arena on the University of Colorado campus in Greeley.

The Lady Wildcats earned a fourth place seed after entering both Districts and Regionals at number two. They came out of Districts with a 2-1 showing and won their lone contest at Regionals against the Idalia Lady Wolves.

State play opened on Thursday afternoon against the fifth-ranked Sangre de Cristo Lady Thunderbirds. Sangre de Cristo entered at 18-2 overall, but fell to the Lady Wildcats by 13 points in the opening round.

Thursday's win put Fleming in a semifinal match against a familiar Briggsdale Lady Falcon team. The Lady Falcons were one of three teams to hand Fleming a loss in the regular season.

Briggsdale lived up to that standard in the final meeting between the two teams this season. The Lady Falcons shut down Fleming's offense allowing only 27 points throughout the entire game. Briggsdale finished with a total tally of 57 to advance to the Championship sending Fleming into the third/fourth place contest.

That game, played on Saturday morning, pitted the Lady Wildcats against the McClave Lady Cardinals who entered at number three. McClave lost to the eventual Champions, the Flatirons Lady Bison, in Friday's semifinal round.

Fleming's offense came out strong in the opening minutes of the third-place game. They grabbed a seven-point advantage over McClave in the first and tacked another 23 points on to their lead by the end of the half. Fleming led 32-9 at intermission.

McClave saw double digits in the third quarter, as their offense put up 13 points and gave up just eight point to the local ladies, but Fleming remained on top, 40-22, heading into the final quarter.

The two teams went bucket for bucket in the last eight minutes of the game. Both teams added six points for a 46-28, Fleming, finish.

Senior Whitney Chintala made leading contributions throughout the tournament. She was the team-high scorer with 37 points across the three games. She also brought down 15 rebounds, earned eight assisted and grabbed four steals.

Junior Kally Kirkwood led her team in rebounds from the post position. She led in all three games bringing down a total of 29 boards in the Tournament. Kirkwood also made a leading scoring contribution with 22 points in addition to passing the team-high nine assists for the week's play.

Junior Lexi Schaefer followed with 19 points on the scoreboard. She led the group in steals for the weekend with six.

The Lady Wildcats lose three seniors to graduation this year. Chintala, Vandenbark and Sam Pope will hang their jerseys leaving the leadership reigns to this year's juniors Kirkwood, Schaefer, Maddy Harms, Laney Schliesser, Hunter Donovan and Maddy Zink.