Waubonsie Valley guts out victory

Waubonsie Valley will not rush to put clips from Tuesday’s 36-28 victory against East Aurora in its season highlight reel.

But more importantly, it will get to create more highlights. The Warriors advance to Thursday’s Class 4A Waubonsie Valley regional final against Oswego East.

“We were just tired today,” Warriors senior Tami Morice said after leading her team with 8 points. “We played tired, we looked tired. It was a rough day. I don’t know what was going on.”

Still, the Warriors held East Aurora (11-20) to just 6 free throws in the game’s final 9 minutes and 25 seconds after Alexis Wren’s 3-pointer gave the Tomcats a 22-21 third-quarter lead. Waubonsie Valley retook the lead with a 12-0 run to put the game out of reach, the Warriors’ third victory of the season against its Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division rival.

After winning the UEC championship last week at Geneva, maybe the Warriors weren’t psyched up for a first-round playoff game.

“I think it was just lack of motivation,” Warriors coach Kim Connell said, not wanting to use tired as an excuse. “We didn’t amp it up, but I’ll be honest, I wasn’t surprised because the first two times we played East, it was the same thing. We didn’t match the intensity, played down a little bit.”