GIRLS

Needles 74, West Wendover 63 — The Mustangs went into the semifinals trying to slow down the Wolverines’ one-woman scoring machine, Danika Sharp.

When that didn’t pan out, Needles simply outscored her.

Alex Chandler scored 24 points to spark the undefeated Mustangs, who overcame a key injury, foul trouble and a 54-point outburst from Sharp.

“We didn’t want her to score,” Chandler said. “But we knew every time they scored, we had to score. Most of our girls can pick it up whenever they need to. We just created whatever we could.”

Danielle Ramos hit five-straight 3-pointers on the way to scoring 15 points for Needles, and Miranda Bracket added 12 points.

Needles (26-0) will play Lincoln County at 3:20 p.m. for the tournament championship at Desert Oasis. Both teams also clinched state berths.

The Mustangs saw starting forward Gena Chavira go down in the second half with a knee injury, but heated up from outside to take control of the game with back-to-back 3-pointers from Ramos and Chandler that gave Needles a 46-28 lead with 3:50 left in the third.

Chandler later scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to give the Mustangs their largest lead, 64-39, with 6:42 left.

But Needles had two players foul out in the period, and Sharp made it interesting by scoring 20 points in the quarter, and West Wendover (17-11) cut the lead to eight, but got no closer.

”I guess we had some regional jitters,” Chandler said. “We came back in the second half and played like we were supposed to. But it was way closer than we wanted.”

Sharp, a senior, finished her career with 2,803 points, which many believe to be the state career scoring record for girls basketball