Sales leads Tuslaw girls past Triway in tournament opener
There isn’t much that comes easy once the postseason arrives.
That much the Tuslaw girls basketball team found out during Wednesday night’s Wooster Division III sectional semifinal. Throw in the fact that the Mustangs’ opponent was PAC-7 rival Triway, a team they’d already played twice this season, and it made for a tricky tournament lid-lifter.
Third-seeded Tuslaw, though, was able to use the services of junior forward Mayci Sales, who paced the Mustangs to a 55-42 win over the No. 11 Titans inside Tuslaw High School.
Sales scored a game-high 25 points and ripped down 19 rebounds in the win.
“When I’m making my shots it really helps,” Sales said after the win. “If I can do that then I know I can do better on defense and can get some rebounds and help my team.”
Triway tried to speed up the pace of the game as much as possible in the first half, using long outlet passes and quick possessions to take an early lead. Four minutes in, the Titans held a 10-4 advantage with Tanner Wirth scoring seven quick first-quarter points.
Then, Sales got going.
The 6-foot forward scored eight points in the opening frame to help tie the game at 10 before Harmony Miller sank a 3-pointer to give the Mustangs the lead. But Triway scored the final six points of the first and claimed a 16-13 lead after eight minutes.
The Titans led by as many as six in the early portions of the second quarter, further proving they weren’t going to give in to the PAC-7 champions. Then, the Mustangs went on a 15-4 run to regain control. Sales continued to be in the middle of all the action, scoring 10 more points in the second quarter and finishing with 18 total in the first half.
Tuslaw went up 28-23 at the 2:28 mark after Faith Lau’s 3-pointer and looked to be on the verge of breaking things open. However, Triway got a big 3 by Macie Wengerd to close the half, forcing the Mustangs to take just a two-point lead (28-26) into the locker room.
“We told our girls at halftime that they were giving us their best shot,” Tuslaw coach Josh Hose said. “We just had to weather the storm and fight back.”
Which is exactly what Hose’s team did.
Tuslaw went on to outscore the Titans 11-3 in the third quarter, allowing just one made field goal from Triway. The Mustangs contested countless shots and even forced six turnovers in the period.
“We just weren’t able to get back into that flow that we had in the first half,” said Triway coach Brian Kiper, whose team finishes the year at 9-14. “From there, once they got the lead, they were able to slow it down and bring us out of the zone. More than anything else, they stopped our transition that allowed us to have so much success early.”
Tuslaw led 39-29 after three and never allowed the Titans to get any closer. Lau scored seven fourth-quarter points for the Mustangs, including a wide-open 3-pointer from the corner with just over a minute to play.
The win is Tuslaw’s 16th straight and improves the team’s overall record to 20-3. Next, the Mustangs will host sixth-seeded Smithville in Saturday’s sectional championship game.
“We tried to just tighten the screws up and remind them about what we believe in,” Hose said. “Teams are going to make some shots sometimes, and in the first half, they did. But the bottom line is to continue to box out and hold them to one shot.”
Along with Sales’ big night, Lau battled through early foul trouble to score 15 points for Tuslaw. Wirth led Triway with 13, while Micah Findley added nine more.
As Tuslaw moves within one game of a return trip to the district tournament, it does so with a now 6-0 record against Triway in the past two seasons.
The Mustangs, though, aren’t concerned with any of the fancy stats or storylines. Instead, they are just focused on continuing to keep their season alive.
“When we got back in the locker room, I wrote our name down on the next line of the bracket we have in there,” Hose said. “It’s all about surviving and advancing. There are no easy games in our district, they are all going to be good teams.”