Southwest Valley Girls fall just short in playoff road game

The Southwest Valley girls basketball team gave Lenox everything the 17-5 home team could ask for in first round postseason action, with the host Tigers winning 46-42 in a hard fought contest.  Lenox's largest lead was 6 points and Southwest Valley's was 3 in a game that was tied very late in the contest.  This was truly a game that could have gone either way and was competitive throughout.  Southwest Valley led by 1 after the first quarter, Lenox by 2 at halftime, Lenox by 3 after 3 quarters and finally Lenox prevailed by the 4 point margin.
Hailey Randall led Southwest Valley with 13 points and ended a spectacular junior season with a nearly 17 point per game average.  Maddie Bevington added 9 points and finished off a fine career by setting the Southwest Valley record for free throw percentage in a season at 80.6 percent (which was second this year overall in the Pride of Iowa Conference). Kenzie Fast played tough defense all night on the talented center for Lenox, Sadie Cox, while scoring 9 points.   Ada Lund had 6 points and 4 steals, setting a Southwest Valley record for steals per game average at 3.9 per game for the season.  Alyssa Pearson had a season high 5 points, including a 3 point shot in the first half that really inspired the team.   Lydia Forsythe added 3 steals with great effort off of the bench, while starter Natalia Zimmerman played a solid floor game.
"I am so incredibly proud of our Timberwolves and our fight tonight.  We played extremely well this week, beating a 3A team by 21 points on their floor and turning around tonight to battle a 17-5, top 15 team to a 4 point game. We absolutely could have won tonight.  I'm sorry we can't continue to play, thank our seniors for their efforts, and believe very bright days are ahead for the players who are returning next year," said Coach Mike Cormack.