Wilsonville Coach Cindy Anderson's parents enjoy the arts and since it was a special occasion their daughter wrote a little play for them and got her team to play the different acting roles. The first half they played a down-trodden team at the brink of playoff elimination. Since Anderson was the author of this little four act play, for her parents it was a happy ending with all the suspense and drama one comes to expect from a WillyWood contest regardless if its football, basketball or even tiddlywinks.

Call it a case of the 'oops' but Sherwood continues to suffer from some dastardly viral symptoms that hit the Bowmen for eight minutes stretches. Always striking in that quarter just before or after halftime, the malady consists of inability to make simple passes, erratic decision making, steep drop in field goal percentage and coaching irratability. On Tuesday, they watched Glencoe swamp them in a 15-3 second quarter and again on Friday, Wilsonville turned the tables on a Sherwood 25-19 halftime lead with a 15-5 run in the third quarter en route to a 52-41 win that turned the race for runner-up in the NWOC into a four team race. Just last Friday Sherwood and Hiillsboro both sat 6-0 before Sherwood experienced their first case of the 'oops' while watching a 10 point go 'poof' in the third quarter against Hilhi. Now Liberty, Wilsonville and Sherwood all sit at 6-3 and Glencoe is just a game back. What a difference a week can make.   

In typical fashion, Sherwood played a strong first quarter as senior Lauren Codling and sophomore Megan Shields were getting the ball down low and scoring at will. Wilsonville was countering with a full court press that was creating some turnovers baskets. By the half, Sherwood had 18 points in the paint but had 14 turnovers. Wilsonville was paced by junior wing Megan Arnoldy who was finding her short jumpers clicking and junior Ashley Walters, who's height was giving the Sherwood posts problems around the baskets as she was hitting her quick turnaround jumpers.

If there was one thing missing in this game through the first half, it was the long ball. Not a single three pointer was made in the first sixteen minutes. Not so in the decisive third quarter when senior Brittany Morales hit the games first three to give Sherwood a 28-19 lead and suddenly it looked like Coach Cindy Anderson, who had brought her parents to the game to celebrate their 50th Anniversary, was going to treat them to viewing her own teams execution. Enter Wilsonville post Kellie Krueger who countered with a three of her own. Wilsonville turned up their press and got Sherwood into full turnover mode for a few more baskets before Krueger let fly another three and in the span of a four minutes into the fourth quarter, the home team had rattled of a 15-3 run. At the end of the third, the Wildcats had crept ahead 34-30 with the game still up for grabs but the Bowmen again finding themselves in that sinking feeling for the third straight game.

The final stanza belonged to Wilsonville as they rattled the Sherwood guards and shut down the visitors posts with a suffocating zone defense that held the usual potent Codling-Shields combo to just seven second half points. In the first game, the Wilsonville triumvirate of Arnoldy-Walters-Krueger had scored a total of 22 points. This game they more than doubled that output with 46 points between the three of them. Five more than the entire Sherwood team.

The second half of league still has a lot of drama for the NWOC. It appears that Hillsboro will run away with the league title but the race for second and third is a coveted one and most of those in the race are splitting their home and aways. The teams that finish strongest will get the plum seeds. Five games remain and the race is on.

Sherwood     -13   12    5   11  -41

Wilsonville     -10    9   15   18  -52

Sherwood-Megan Shields 13, Codling 11, Morales 8, Francis 5, Snyder 2, Adamson 2, McGee, Smith, Christie

Wilsonville-Megan Arnoldy 19, Krueger 16, Walters 11, Gearheart 2, Clark 2, Britsch 2, Riewald, Rhodes, Cohn