Tonganoxie ? The Tonganoxie High girls almost wrote the perfect script for a basketball championship game Saturday against Jefferson West in the final of the Tonganoxie Invitational, but the Chieftains got the ending wrong.

The highlights included a neck-and-neck battle, plenty of floor burns, a technical foul, a raucous crowd and 10 ties, but being on the short end of the 52-46 final score wasn’t the conclusion the Chieftains had in mind.

West’s Courtney Sutton was the reason Tongie fell behind. She scored 21 points and went 10-for-10 at the free-throw line.

Ali Pistora led the Chieftains with 16 points.

“We battled,” Tongie coach Randy Kraft said. “I was really proud of the kids, but that No. 13 (Sutton), she doesn’t miss from the line, and unfortunately we kept sending her to the line. We were either even or controlled about every facet of the game except getting her to the line, and that was the story right there.”

The Chieftains (7-4) took a seven-point lead in the first quarter, but a six-minute scoring drought allowed the Tigers to catch up and force a 21-all tie at halftime. The teams played even throughout the second half until West closed the game with a 9-3 run in the final four minutes.

“I think maybe at the end our legs got a little tired,” Tongie senior Katie Jeannin said. “But we gave it our all and battled hard.”

Leavenworth Immaculata 60,

Tonganoxie boys 40

Average shooting in the first half gave Tonganoxie a chance against Leavenworth Immaculata in the title game of the Tonganoxie Invitational. A frigid second half erased that opportunity.

The Chieftains (4-6) trailed 29-28 at halftime despite shooting just 34 percent. They made just five of 24 shots (21 percent) the rest of the way, however, and were outscored 31-12 in the second half.

“They did a good job defensively,” Tongie coach David Walker said of his team’s offensive woes. “They sunk and forced us to shoot some perimeter shots. We’ve had a great week this week, but unfortunately some shots didn’t fall.”

Immac’s shots did, though. The Raiders shot 46-percent (25-for-54) and got a game-high 20 points from tournament Most Valuable Player Danny McEvoy. Chase Day added 13 points for Immac and Matt Scanlon chipped in 10. Shane Howard led Tongie with nine points.