In their final tune-up before entering Jayhawk West play, the Pratt Community College women’s basketball team simply ran out of gas down the stretch— and fell to visiting Butler County 85-76 Wednesday night at Dennis Lesh Sports Arena.

In their final tune-up before entering Jayhawk West play, the Pratt Community College women’s basketball team simply ran out of gas down the stretch— and fell to visiting Butler County 85-76 Wednesday night at Dennis Lesh Sports Arena. Still playing shorthanded with some girls continuing to ride the pine due to violation of team rules, the Lady Beavers rotation basically consisted of just 6 girls. That presented several problems for PCC, not the least of which were fatigue and the need to avoid foul trouble. “We were just gassed toward the end of the game,” observed head coach Stephanie Thompson. “We were too tired to execute our fast-break offense, which we needed to get back in the game.” Also, the Lady Beavers uncharacteristically gave up 52 points in the second half after yielding only 33 prior to intermission. It was not so much that Butler presented especially tough match-ups for the Beavers. It was more a result of PCC’s shorthandedness. “We were getting tired in the second half,” explained Coach Thompson, “and also, the girls had to worry about foul trouble. We couldn’t afford to be aggressive defensively because we couldn’t have anyone fouling out.” Except for the first portion of the second half, PCC played right with— or better than— Butler. But the Grizzlies outscored the Beavers 24- 13 between intermission and the second half media time-out. That turned a 36-33 deficit into a 57-49 lead for the visitors. At the 4:51 mark, the Butler lead had grown to 72-58, which was the largest of the night for the Lady Grizzlies. With time running down, the Beavers could throw caution to the wind. It was not as critical to avoid foul trouble, so they could become more aggressive again. They summoned up reserves of energy and made one final run at Butler. By the 1:30 mark, PCC had whittled the lead down to 80-73, but that was as close as they would get. Butler closed out the exhausted Beavers 85-76. “I was proud of our kids,” Thompson concluded. “ We did some good things. They just wore us down. We came up a little short, but it wasn’t due to lack of effort. The team played extremely hard and fought until the very end.” The Lady Beavers are now 13-3 on the year. PCC enters Jayhawk West play Saturday night with a trip to Barton County, tip-off at 6 p.m. PCC 36 40 76 Butler 33 52 85 Maddie Pendry 22, Tatiana Grant 22, Kari Devlin 15, Pena 8, Spence 4, Stein 5