[ t o u r n e y t o w n . c o m -- 2008 Class 1B girls state tournament ]

Colton -- Moser 2-11 2-2 6, A. Nygreen 0-4 2-2 2, Heaslet 0-0 0-0 0, Moehrle-Druffel 5-14 3-4 14, Meyer 0-2 0-0 0, M. Nygreen 1-1 0-0 3, Druffel 2-3 1-2 5, Spense 0-2 0-0 0, K. Druffel 0-0 0-0 0, Kramer 3-7 0-0 6, Becker 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 13-44 8-10 36.

Garfield-Palouse -- Saunders 0-0 1-2 1, Boone 0-0 0-0 0, Bower 4-16 2-5 11, Shoemaker 5-7 1-2 11, Lopez 2-8 1-4 5, Redman 5-12 2-2 12, Iverson 0-0 0-0 0, Woltering 1-3 1-2 4, Weagraff 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 17-46 8-17 44.

Colton

Garfield-Palouse

3-point goals--C 2-18 (M. Nygreen 1-1, Moerhle-Druffel 1-6, Meyer 0-1, Druffel 0-1, Kramer 0-1, Moser 0-2, Spense 0-2, A. Nygreen 0-4), G-P 2-5 (Woltering 1-1, Bower 1-2, Lopez 0-2). Rebounds--C 32 (Moehrle-Druffel 9), G-P 37 (Redman 10, Lopez 7). Assists--C 8 (Meyer 3), G-P 8 (Bower 3, Lopez 3). Steals--C 9 (Moser 4), G-P 6 (Bower 3). Blocked shots--C 1, G-P 2. Fouled out--Moser. Total fouls--C 18, G-P 9. Technical fouls--Saunders. Turnovers--C 16, G-P 14.

There wasn’t anyone tougher than the Garfield-Palouse Vikings at the 1B girls state tourney this week.

They battled through the hardest of the two halves of the bracket with gritty inside play. And that was no different Saturday in the SunDome.

Colton, ranked third right behind second-ranked Gar-Pal, gave the Vikings everything they had. But in the end, there was no answer for post players who dominated inside for the 44-36 championship victory.

“We’ve always been an inside team who likes to get inside and get physical,” said Gar-Pal forward Katie Redman, who led three scorers in double figures with 12 points — most of them coming in the paint — and grabbed 10 rebounds. “In practice we always work on shooting over people inside and trying to draw fouls.”

Ahead 17-16 at halftime, the Vikings padded their lead behind Courtney Shoemaker scoring seven of her 11 points in the third quarter. Redman added six of her total in this frame, and nobody seemed too worried that tournament MVP Elisha Lopez got only five points as she battled for seven rebounds and fed the post players with nice passes.

“These kids are physical, hard-working kids who aren’t going to be intimidated because they want to be the intimidators,” said Viking coach Steve Swinney, whose team finished 24-4 overall a year after taking eighth in the 1B tourney. “Colton is the same way and we knew it was a battle coming in.”

The Wildcats, who improved on last year’s third-place finish, got 14 points from Alisa Moehrle-Druffel, but she was the only player in double figures. Their latest lead came 19-17 with 5 minutes and 47 seconds left in the third quarter.

From there, they never got than five as Gar-Pal grabbed 37 rebounds, 13 coming on the offensive glass. The Wildcats, a perimeter team, didn’t help things with 2-for-18 shooting from 3-point range.

“We got killed on the boards,” said Colton coach Clark Vining, whose team finished 23-3. “They’re tough inside, big and physical. They took it to us inside.”

Gar-Pal’s trophy was its seventh in eight state trips, and the first time the team had advanced this far since reaching the 1A title game in 1977.