4A Title Goes to Lady Camels

For the 14th time in school history and 2nd time in the last 3 years the Gillette Lady Camels (21-6) were crowned 4A State Basketball Champions after their 69-48 win over Cheyenne East in the State Title game Saturday night at the Casper Events Center.

This was the 4th time these two teams had met this season, but this match up was the biggest of them all as it was for all the marbles. Gillette used a hot start by Dani Williams, who scored 9 of her career high 21 points in the first quarter. Williams scored the first 6 points of the game to give the Lady Camels a 6-0 lead, but East was able to answer back thanks to hot shooting of Kayla Cheney and Sarah Erickson as they scored 11 of the Lady T-Birds 17 first quarter points.

Gillette had a slim 20-17 lead at the end of 1 and then worked that lead up to as many as 11 points in the 2nd quarter, but East went on a small run to cut the lead to 35-28 at half. The 2nd half saw not only Gillette's offense put up 34 points, but their defense held East to just 20 points, including just 5 in the 3rd quarter.

Both teams shot the ball very well in the 1st half with the Lady Camels shooting 48% and East shooting at a 43.5% clip. Then in the 2nd half Gillette held the Lady T-Birds to just 31.3% shooting. Time and time again the Lady Camels denied East easy baskets in the paint and when Gillette did foul, the Lady T-Birds struggled at the free throw line going just 7 of 18 while the Lady Camels made 19 of the 29 attempts, including 13 of 15 in the 2nd half.

Gillette's "Big Three," Sierra Toms, McCorra Ford and Dani Williams, who won a state title as sophomores, accounted for 45 of the team's 69 points. Besides Williams' 21 points, McCorra Ford had 14 points and Toms 10. A total of 10 Lady Camels scored in the title game with Julia Seamans scoring all 7 of her points in the 2nd half. Haley Shackelford chipped in 4 points from the free throw line while Whitney George, Bridgit Cargal and Shelby Johnson ech had 3 points and contributing 2 points apiece were Steph Casteel and Heaven Lint.

East was led in scoring by Sarah Erickson and Elissia Johnson as they each had 10 points. Rachel Erickson, Leah Cheney and Kayla Cheney each had 6 points.

This was the final high school game of the careers of Gillette's 7 seniors, Williams, Toms, Ford, Casteel, George, Shackelford and Cargal and they helped Head Coach Mitch Holst to win his 8th State Title at the helm of the Lady Camels and improve to 8-1 in title games.

For complete stats from this game just go tohttp://www.cybersportsusa.com/webgames/webgame.aspx?xmlfile=CheCam030920135pm%2Exml&uid=0&ssid=