Story by Wyatt Ebersole
The Butler Women earned their ninth straight victory Wednesday evening with a triumphant win over the Coffeyville Red Ravens. The Grizzlies, now 19-3 and 14-3 in conference play, hold a 1.5 game advantage on second place and still trail first place Dodge City (20-2, 15-1) by 1.5 games. The loss for Coffeyville knocks them out of a tie for third place and slides them down to fourth in the standings.
Things started slow offensively both ways after tipoff with the Red Ravens and Grizzlies tied 6-6 after the first five minutes. The Grizzlies would get the first run of the game 6-1 spurt over the next 60 seconds to put themselves up 12-7, before the Red Ravens would end the final 3:34 of the opening quarter on a 6-0 run that saw them take a 13-12 lead over the Grizzlies after the first ten minutes.
The Grizzlies struck first in the second quarter with a jumper from Freddie Wallace to go up 14-13. The Red Ravens would respond with a three to take the lead back. Coach Mike Helmer's crew would retake the lead 90 seconds later, on a bucket from Dayuna Colvin to go up 18-16. After this point, the Grizzlies would not trail the rest of the game. The Butler Women would grow their lead out to as big as six multiple times in the quarter, but Coffeyville wouldn't let the Grizzlies get any further away and Butler entered the half with a 28-24 halftime lead.
The Red Ravens would seriously threaten the Grizzly lead after a pair of Red Raven threes cut their deficit down to just two at 40-38 with five minutes left in the third. The Grizzlies, however, were about to pull away for good. The Butler Women never allowed Coffeyville to get closer than two and started their breakaway run at the 3:34 mark when Randi Harding made her first three of the quarter to make it a six-point game at 45-39. After the teams traded two points, Harding buried another three to make it a nine-point difference, and just 40 seconds later, Randi buried her third three in a row and in a flash, the Butler Women were up 53-41 with under a minute left in the quarter. For good measure, Randi would add her fourth three of the quarter with nine seconds left, and the Grizzlies just like that, were in control 56-41 with only the fourth quarter left to play.
Coffeyville managed to slow down the Grizzlies offense in the fourth, but the Red Ravens never put together enough offense to pull themselves within single digits the rest of the game, and the Grizzlies avenged their earlier season loss to Coffeyville with a 68-56 win at home in front of a rowdy crowd in the Power Plant.
The upcoming schedule for the Grizzlies doesn't get any easier, as they will travel to rival Hutchinson on Saturday and then will play at Dodge City on the following Wednesday which may end up being an outright battle for first place in the Jayhawk Conference.
NOTES: The Grizzlies are now 13-6 against Coffeyville since 2011 and 4-4 against current Coffeyville coach Tony Turner…Freddie Wallace finished with 31 points, a career high for the freshman from Lincoln, Nebraska…Freddie is the only Grizzly to score more than 25 points in a game this season and she's done it six times…The Grizzlies are undefeated this season when they lead at halftime
