Valerie Norwood in her final state tournament first round game.

By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington girls have now won three out of four first-round state tournament games – and just like the other three victories, this one didn’t come easily.

Wellington defeated Andale 52-40 to advance to the second round of the Class 4A State Tournament. The Crusaders will battle the winner of Buhler-Labette County on Friday at 4 p.m. here at the Salina Tony’s Pizza Center.

The Crusaders staved off an 18-of-56 (32.1 percent) shooting performance to advance. Andale, which ends its season at 15-7, didn’t shoot much better – going 14 of 45 (31.1 percent).

Sophomore Kirstyn Gregory on defense.

“We missed eight or nine easy layups, and in a close game that will come back to bite you,” said Eric Adams, Wellington head girls basketball coach. “But we won this game playing good hard-nosed defense.”

Wellington’s senior towers Valerie Norwood and Britt Zeka had 13 and 11 points. But both girls had their struggles. B. Zeka was one free throw from being scoreless in the first half. However, early in the third quarter, she nailed two 3-pointers and a deuce to snap Wellington out of its early slumber.

Unfortunately, the ref gave her a third foul and she had to come out to sit the bench. But from that point on, Wellington was pretty much in control of this game. The Crusaders would outscore Andale 18-9 and led 44-26 at the end of three. The quarter ended with junior Kylan Gregory making a huge 3-point play.

Wellington would build the lead to 20 points, before Adams would take out the seniors late to preserve their legs for the next game. Andale managed to narrow the margin to 12 points for the closer than expected final score. Still, this game was never in doubt.

Wellington girls starting the tournament with some signing of the national anthem.

“It is Andale’s DNA to play hard, so we knew coming into this game that we had our work cut out for us,” Adams said. “They implemented a zone on us that threw us off for a while but we were able to make those adjustments at halftime.”

Wellington opened with a 9-0 lead but saw Andale cut the lead to 11-7 at the end of the first half. The Crusaders would open up a 17-7 lead and kept it in double digits the rest of the way, despite missing six field goals in the second half.

The Crusaders led 26-17 at the half.

For the game, Wellington won the battle of the floor as Andale committed 22 turnovers to Wellington’s 12. Wellington had seven blocks while Andale had none. Andale won the rebounding battle slightly 39 to 35.

Dru Zeka on the run early in the first half.

Wellington now has a guaranteed three games, but they will need to shoot the ball better against one of the 18-4 teams that will be playing them tomorrow night. As this story was being written both Buhler and Labette County are going to be a tough hang.

Show up Wellington fans. This is a big moment in Crusader sports history.

Full stats can be found here.