Lady Wave thwarts Vikings’ vengeance

South Tahoe’s chance for any revenge will have to wait until the playoffs after the Lady Wave basketball team capsized the Lady Vikings in a 50-24 victory on Tuesday night.

The Wave girls’ basketball team remains undefeated at 19-0 overall and 10-0 in D1-A, while the Lady Vikings stand at 4-10 overall and 3-5.

The next team to challenge the undefeated Lady Wave is Dayton in an away game at 6 p.m.

South Tahoe coach Michael Neiger said he felt a little frustrated that his team missed an opportunity but gave Fallon credit for their performance.

“They’re obviously a very good team and very well coached,” Neiger said of Fallon. “I feel like we missed an opportunity because most of their points came on the inside from second, third, fourth, even fifth chances on points, so that was frustrating.”

The Lady Vikings kept the Lady Wave on their toes in the first half with a diamond press defense that let them take more turnovers and keep their good shooters near the net for when Fallon’s shooters would miss.

The Vikings’ Brooke Cadady was an advantageous shooter in this way who scored two consecutive 3-pointers in the second quarter alone that gave South Tahoe a chance to compete.

Neiger said that Cadady displayed nice outside shooting finding her range during the night.

Nonetheless, the Lady Wave’s Leilani Otuafi and Leta Otuafi had an aggressive first half, though Fallon’s scoring was more spread out than usual without any one player taking too much time at the net.

With the Wave leading the first half, 29-15, Fallon coach Anne Smith said she was happy overall, but her team also needed to work on giving up fewer turnovers.

“We had too many turnovers,” Smith said, “so we need to take care of the ball. We tried to make some adjustments offensively with ball movement, and we did a good job on that.”

Smith also said she was a little disappointed in Fallon’s rebound game in the first half but that they had better rebounding in the second half.

Once Fallon’s Caitlyn Welch and Megan McCormick found open passing lanes, the two joined Fallon’s leading scorers in the second half against a somewhat tight South Tahoe defense.

Neiger said, mechanically, that his players needed to box out to avoid a succession of rebounding and scoring that led to Fallon’s 26-point victory.

Despite the lopsided win, Smith commended Neiger and the Vikings for controlling the boards in many instances.

“(Neiger) is a good coach and he always has the girls ready especially the second time around,” Smith said of their rematch. “We had to really work to get our name on the board because of the way they crashed the boards. We would have four and sometimes five chances at a shot and they really choked up on us.”

With the Vikings behind them until the playoffs and Dayton coming up today, Smith said she expects a much improved team out of the Dust Devils and knows Angela Sikora is still the player to stop.

“Angle, she’s a great basketball player who drives and shoots great from the outside,” Smith said. “She’ll be the one that we’re really going to have to look at and prepare to stop.”