IOLA — Winners of seven straight games and now a piece of hardware, the Cherryvale Chargers girls won the War on 54 title on Friday, beating Iola, 45-31.
In typical fashion under head coach Kelsey Overacker, who secured her 100th career victory in the first round of the tournament, Cherryvale connected on seven 3-pointers en route to the win.
“Holy moly, we live and die by that,” Overacker said. “You can tell in games we struggle. We’re still learning to find ways to score when we aren’t hot. But fortunately, Harmony (John) caught fire in the third quarter and flowed with it. When we see them go through the net, we ride.”
John led the Chargers with 17 points, 15 coming in the second half.
“Having that back and forth game with Humboldt helped us keep our calm today,” Overacker said. “The kids finished and that really helped.”
John was the third leading scorer in as many games for the Chargers after Marchant and Kadynce Forman paced Cherryvale in the first two rounds, respectively.
“We’ve seen different kids step up,” Overacker said. “Tatum (Marchant) hit seven threes earlier in the week. Lili-Ann just keeps working even if she’s not getting her name called a ton. We had three different kids reach double digits this week. That’s what propels us.”
Up next
Cherryvale will face Neodesha twice this week — on the road on Tuesday then at home on Thursday.
“We’ve got a few kids in their heads, so our confidence needs to get higher,” Overacker said. “We’re ready to go. We’ve got back-to-back games with Neodesha, so that’ll show us where we’re at.”
