By: Faith Shenkel
On January 21, 2017, the Harlan Lady Hawks hosted the Hawks Invitational Tournament. The day started out early with the Lady Hawks playing the Fort Wayne Hurricanes. By the end of the first half the Lady Hawks lead with a score of 22- 16. The Lady Hawks won 56-26.
The second game of the day was played between the Angola Lady Warriors and The King’s Academy Knights. The Knights won this game.
After that, the shoot-out competition and the free-throw competition began. In the shoot-out competition Kelli Neff, from King’s Academy, won 1st place, and Faith Shenkel from HCS received runner-up. In the free-throw competition Harlan’s Hillary Straley won 1st place and Haley Gajewski from the Hurricanes received runner-up.
The Harlan Lady Hawks and the King’s Academy Lady Knights played next in the championship game. The Hawks ended the first quarter with a score of 10-7 with Faith Shenkel hitting a buzzer-beater from half court at the end of the first quarter.
By the end of the half, the Hawks were down 10-19. They came to the end of the third quarter and were still down 44- 33. The Lady Hawks were down by 19 points at one time. The fourth quarter began; the Hawks started chipping away at the Knight’s lead, and in the process the Knights had a few girls foul out. The Lady Hawks did not stay out of foul trouble either. Kaylee Witham fouled out in the 4th quarter and Faith Shenkel, Julia Troyer, Kaitlyn Graber and Haley Miller all had 4 fouls in the 4th quarter. With about a minute and half left, the Knights had four young ladies foul out. This left the Knights with four players on the court with 1:33 left to play and the lead had already been done away with by the Lady Hawks. In the last 45 seconds the Knight’s player, Kenzee Staggs was fouled. She went to the line and made 2 free- throws putting King’s Academy up 59-58. As the clock kept ticking away, the Hawks fans thought it was over, but Alana Gingerich was able to get the ball to Hillary Straley with 1.2 seconds left of regulation time, Hillary Straley went up for a shot and she was fouled as the buzzer for regulation time sounded. Hillary Straley was to shoot two free throws with no time left on the clock and the Lady Hawks trailing by 1 point. The free-throw champ came through for the Lady Hawks and made both of her buckets giving the Hawks the 60-59 victory over the Knights. Hawks vs. Knights stats:
Hillary Straley had 30 points, one assist, and 4 rebounds; Julia Troyer had 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 steals; Faith Shenkel had 17 points, 1 assist, and 4 steals
All-tourney team: Hillary Straley, Julia Troyer and Faith Shenkel MVP for tournament: Hillary Straley
