Bronco girls advance to sub final

    The Wauneta-Palisade girls basketball team advanced to the D2-9 subdistrict finals with a 55-43 win over Wallace, the fifth seed, Tuesday night.
    WP will host second seeded Medicine Valley Thursday night. The game will begin at 6:30 p.m. MT.
    WP and MV have split games this season. The Broncos won  Dec. 10 at the Cattle Trail Tournament and Medicine Valley beat WP Feb. 2.
    A full recap of the subdistrict tournament will be available in next week’s Republican.
    The Broncos split their final regular season games with Cheylin, Kansas and Maywood/Hayes Center.
    WP laid the wood to the 1-18 Cougars Thursday night.
    Broncos’ Head Coach Matt Cox said Cheylin is low on numbers, but they played really hard.
    “It was a nice road trip to a new place and a gym WP hadn’t been in before,” he added.
    Six Broncos scored in the first quarter and WP made 5-7 free throws to start off the game.
    Cox was able to get a lot of players in the game. Wauneta-Palisade continued to have multiple players score in the second quarter, enough that WP took a 37-12 lead to halftime.
    With all 14 players seeing action in the third and fourth quarters, the Broncos continued to pull away for a 56-21 win.
    “I thought we did a good job in transition offense and we created some offense with our full and half court pressure,” Cox said.
    Peyton Cox scored 15 points and pulled down 21 rebounds to lead the Broncos. Cali Cox added 14 points. Chloe Stehno finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
    The Broncos took on a completely different team the following night when Maywood/Hayes Center (21-1) came to town.
    WP hung with the Wolves, ranked fourth in Class D1, in the first quarter with Stehno scoring six points and P. Cox adding four. Three 3’s by MHC’s Olivia Hansen had WP trailing 10-15 heading into the second quarter.
    The Broncos gave MHC all it wanted in the second quarter. P. Cox made three field goals and also went to the free throw line five times. Stenho added five points, as did GraCee Goings. The Wolves made six field goals of their own and used 6-8 free throw shooting to only let WP cut into MHC’s lead by one. The Broncos went to the halftime locker room with a 29-33 deficit.
    Wauneta-Palisade kept the Wolves close in the second half, but never could get over the hump. Goings hit a three pointer in the third quarter to go with two point field goals by C. Cox and P. Cox.
    After a quiet third quarter, Stehno scored four points in the fourth quarter and finished the night with 15 points.
    C. Cox hit a three pointer and P. Cox converted a three point play as time ran down. MHC left the door open with 3-8 free throw shooting in the fourth quarter, but added enough field goals to keep the game out of reach of the Broncos.
    WP ended its regular season with an 11-9 record with the 47-59 loss.
    Cox pointed out it was an eight point game going into the fourth quarter, but the Broncos couldn’t get enough 10-foot jumpers to fall.
    P. Cox finished with 18 poimts and 23 rebounds. Stehno rounded out a double-double with 11 rebounds.
    MHC “is a good team and I was proud of the way we played and battled for four quarters,” Cox said.