Lady Panthers top seed for northwestern half going into regional tournament

Posted 3/5/15

Heading into the start of the postseason with the Class 3A West Regional Tournament in Lander, the only recognition the Powell High School girls are getting for their 17-3 campaign is the top seed for the Northwestern half of the conference. That …

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Lady Panthers top seed for northwestern half going into regional tournament

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It was a stellar regular season for the Lady Panther basketball team, but “we start brand new now,” said head coach Scott McKenzie. “We have to come ready to go this weekend.”

Heading into the start of the postseason with the Class 3A West Regional Tournament in Lander, the only recognition the Powell High School girls are getting for their 17-3 campaign is the top seed for the Northwestern half of the conference. That has spelled an opening match-up with the Southwest conference’s lowest-ranked seed, Jackson’s 1-19 Lady Broncs.

The two squads will tip off at 4 p.m. today (Thursday), with the winner advancing to take on the victor of a contest between Star Valley (15-4) and Lander (8-14). The losers of those two games will meet in a do-or-die tussle on Friday.

Mountain View (14-6) earned the Southwest’s No. 1 seed by their conference record and a tiebreaker.

McKenzie said Powell’s first goal will be to clinch a top-four finish and thereby earning a trip to state. That means winning games before losing two games.

But he makes no secret of the Lady Panthers’ second goal, of winning three straight games.

“We want to win the tournament,” he said.

Despite the larger aims, McKenzie said the team planned to keep its sights squarely on Jackson during this week’s practices.

“For the girls, it will be all Jackson, and for the coaches, it will be everybody that’s going (to the tournament),” he said.

PHS brings one of the conference’s toughest defenses to regionals, allowing an average of just 34 points per game. The Lady Panther offense, meanwhile, has averaged just less than 48 points per contest.

Senior Jenni Ebersberger is averaging 11.2 points a game (plus 3.3 assists). Following her is sophomore Kalina Smith with 9.4 points a game, plus an average of 3.5 blocks and 4.7 rebounds.

Juniors Brianna Donarski and Danna Hanks each add an average of 8.2 points a game and around five rebounds. The two guards have been near statistical identical twins in several categories: Donarski scored 164 points, collected 100 rebounds and dished out 55 assists. Hanks, meanwhile, had 163 points, 101 rebounds and 54 assists.

“They’re just absolutely mirror images of each other,” McKenzie said. “They play hard, they work hard.”

He said when opponents focus on Ebersberger and Smith, it means their third or fourth-best players are matched up with Hanks or Donarski and “they have a hard time.”

Senior Megan Wagner has also been a team leader on the boards, collecting an average of roughly five rebounds per game. (She collected 99 rebounds in the regular season to finish just two back of Hanks.)

McKenzie predicts a lot of good tournament basketball over the next two weekends.

“There’s a lot of good 3A teams out there,” he said.

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