For just the second time in the last six years the Heights Lady Falcons have lost two games in a season to a Wichita area school.
On Tuesday night the defending 5A state champion Kapaun Mt. Carmel Crusaders rattled the usually poised Heights Falcons and beat the defending 6A champs 50-48.
Early on the Falcons and Crusaders traded three-pointers. Hannah Lienhard and Sam Bachrodt were hot for Kapaun while Jharian Bowen was shooting lights out for Heights.
That's not surprising though considering coach Marvin Estes was determined to keep Heights out of the paint. That's easy to do when you've got Lienhard at 6' and Sydney Kuhn at 6'2 defending down low. The two ladies also combined for 33 of the Crusaders' 50 points on the night.
With the exception of a 5 point lead early in the first quarter this game never got beyond a 3 or 4 point advantage for either team as Kapaun led by 1, 28-27.
Bowen finished with 17 of the Falcons' points but newcomer Jurnee Reed wasn't far behind with 10 points and some clutch shots in the third quarter to keep Heights in the game. Reed's triple with less than a minute to play in the third quarter put Heights up 39-38. However Bachrodt was right there to answer with the quick shot off the inbounds pass, hitting a three and giving Kapaun a 41-39 advantage to start the fourth quarter.
Heights looked like they might finally start to pull ahead in the fourth quarter when Odyssey Trussel recovered an air-ball on the baseline and somehow threw a pass behind her back perfectly in line with Jada Lynch. Lynch took it the length of the court, hit the lay-up and drew the foul. However she missed her free throw which gave Heights a three point lead with 6 minutes left in the game.
But this was a title bout between two heavyweights and the teams kept trading punches down the stretch.
Heights had a chance to take the lead when Kapaun turned it over. However Katie Palmer had a little too hard of a touch on her layup as it bounced off the rim. Kapaun was able to hit one more free throw to make it a two point game with just under thirty seconds to play but Heights had the ball.
Kapaun played excellent defense and did not allow a clear shot for the Falcons as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
This is just the second loss for the Falcons this season and it's just their second loss in the last three years. In fact, it's just the 10th loss by Heights in the last 6 seasons of basketball.
Kapaun moves to 8-0 on the season.
