YAKIMA – The Kingston High School girls basketball team is headed into the consolation bracket after a 45-35 loss to a tough Archbishop Murphy squad Thursday at the Class 2A state tournament in Yakima.

Kingston can still finish as high as fourth place in the tournament, but will have to go through Elma in a 2 p.m. Friday game if they wish to do so.

Murphy (25-0) played stout defense Thursday, sealing off the lane almost every time Kingston drove down the court. But it was the Bucs’ poor free throw shooting that really did them in. Kingston shot 11-24 from the charity stripe, well below their season average.

“Last night we shot 82% from the free throw line,” said Kingston head coach Kevin Strozier after Thursday’s loss. “Tonight we shot 45. You can’t win a ball game like that. I say it all the time: Free throws will win games for you, they’ll lose games for you.”

Despite the low-scoring game, Kingston’s Sophia Baetz managed to lead all players with 22 points on the night. But the Bucs will try and distribute the ball more evenly and expect more points out of the rest of the team in their next game.

“We’re going to try and work on team ball,” said junior wing Elle Sander.

Even with the quick turnaround time between games – less than 16 hours – the Bucs will head to the gym to practice free throws, among other finer points.

“We’ve got to focus on running our plays properly, listening to what the coaches tell us to do,” said Sander.

The Bucs and Wildcats looked evenly matched at the beginning of Thursday’s game, but once Murphy’s defense went to work, the Wildcats quickly gained a first quarter lead and Kingston could not catch up. The Bucs pulled to within two early in the third quarter, but soon Murphy’s Shelby Lyman single-handedly took her team on a 10-0 run with two 3-pointers bookended by inside jumpers. With their dismal free throw and field goal shooting, Kingston never managed to get within reach of the Wildcats for the rest of the second half.

“We played hard, and battled,” said Strozier. “That team didn’t beat us. We beat ourselves.”