Nieto ties school record with nine 3s; Garden City advances to second round

Garden City, KS-Maya Nieto made history on Saturday. 

The freshman guard tied Kavita Akula's school record with nine 3-pointers, Antonicia Moultrie had 17 points and nine rebounds, and Garden City advanced to the second round of the Region VI Tournament with a 78-71 victory over Independence on Saturday at Conestoga Arena.  

Nieto finished with 29 points on 9-of-17 from downtown for Garden City, which improved to 17-13 overall.  

More impressively, they held one of the top players in the conference, Merveille Nkoyock, to just 18 points on 7-of-19 shooting. In fact, the sophomore guard missed 10 of her final 12 shots.  

After a sluggish start that had Garden City down four after one, the Broncbusters found some rhythm in the second period. Moultrie completed a three-point play, and Nieto drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Broncbusters the lead. Sariah Conley, who came off the bench on Saturday, followed with an open triple; then swished two free throws, Moultrie buried a midrange jumper from the baseline, and Nieto knocked down a 17-footer to push the advantage to six. Garden City was up 36-34 at the break.  

Greg Franklin's team then turned it on in the third. 

The Broncbusters opened the second half on a 14-2 run capped by Nieto's catch-and-shoot trey that made it 50-36. Garden City was up eight heading into the fourth. 

Independence though, which finished the year 16-15 overall, managed to make things interesting in the final period.  

Trailing by 12, the visitors surged back with a 14-6 run, and when Nkoyock rattled home a 3-pointer from the top of the key, the Pirates were within four, 68-64 with 3:08 to go.  

That's as close as they got the rest of the way. 

The Broncbusters got a big answer on the other end with Ana Ramos-Pires' three-point play, which stretched the lead back to seven.  

Driessen finished with 13 points and 10 assists for Garden City, which won the game despite shooting just 39.7 percent from the field. They scored 14 points off 20 Independence turnovers.