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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe crowd was a testament to the competitive nature of the game. Despite Fort Hays and UNK being four and five hours away from Kansas City, 1,374 fans made the trip to Municipal Auditorium.
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The Lopers jumped on top to start the game, narrowly leading 17-14 after the first quarter. However, the Tigers started the second quarter by going on a 14-0 run and never trailed again. UNK did cut the lead down to three at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but Fort Hays was able to pull away and win by 10.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s about what I expected,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cOne or the other of us always gets a little bit of a cushion in the second half and then gives it up to the other team. We kind of let them back in it today, the last time we were at their place they let us back in it, so that\u2019s just indicative of two teams that compete and don\u2019t give up.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe knew it would be a tough game, and I thought our kids really gritted it out, made a couple of big shots at big times, and did enough to win the game.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior forward Whitney Randall led the Tigers in scoring with a game-high 20 points. Fort Hays\u2019 first seven points of both the first and second halves were scored by Randall. For the game she went 7-12 from the field, 3-4 on three-pointers, and 3-4 on free throws.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaden Hobbs and Lauren West followed with ten points each, and Olivia Hollenbeck and Katie Wagner chipped in eight points a piece. Wagner also pulled down 11 rebounds.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Randall and Wagner, the key to moving forward in the tournament is staying \u201ccalm, cool, and collected.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[Hobson] kept telling us to settle down when [Hollenbeck] got her [third] foul and they shot free throws, but we were still up, so it was just keeping our heads on our shoulders, knowing we were still ahead. We knew that we needed to get stops and it would create some offense,\u201d Randall said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of been our story this season, is going on runs and then giving up runs, but we just have to stay calm and be in it at the end of the game to be able to get the win. I\u2019m just glad we get to play tomorrow,\u201d added Wagner.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fort Hays will face the tournament\u2019s number one seed Missouri Southern in the championship game. The Tigers only faced the Lions once during the regular season, losing 54-41. Lacy Stokes of Missouri Southern will be the biggest threat Fort Hays faces. The guard, who is a true freshman, was the MIAA Player of the Week four times during the regular season, was named Freshman of the Year, Player of the Year, and scored 32 points in the semifinal game against Missouri Western.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a good team. I think the last time they got beat was early January. We\u2019re facing a hot team that\u2019s really confident,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got the most valuable player in the conference. She creates her own shots and she likes the moment. They just have a really good team. We\u2019re going to have to be a little more intelligent defensively at times. We\u2019ll have to guard them differently than we did Kearney.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The championship game will be played at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon in the Municipal Auditorium. A live broadcast will be streamed on the MIAA Network, and TMN will have coverage of the game as well.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BY RAEGAN NEUFELDPHOTOS BY LOREN McQUEENY The Fort Hays State University Tigers and Nebraska-Kearney Lopers met for the third time this season on Saturday in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":63824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7349,3395],"tags":[11634,3448,14459,3720,14226,290],"class_list":["post-63831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-womens-basketball-sports","tag-fhsu-wbb","tag-fhsu-womens-basketball","tag-loren-mcqueeny","tag-miaa-tournament","tag-raegan-neufeld","tag-tmn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1B6A9453.jpg?fit=6720%2C4480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63831"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63836,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63831\/revisions\/63836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}