Lady Cats win two, Final conference games Friday and Saturday

The Lady Cats girl's basketball team took the game early Friday and never relented, wining against Burlington 46-33.

The girls had a lot more shot attempts due to the huge discrepancy in turnovers and offensive rebounds. The Lady Cats controlled the game from the start with 19 points to Burlington's 10 in the first quarter. The Lady Cats turned the ball over only three times in the first half and had the lead by over 20 points halfway through the fourth quarter. According to coach Cory Sova, the scoring was super balanced with five girls scoring eight points or more, it was a nice team effort. "Makayla George had 10 points and shot the ball well, best game of her varsity career," said Sova.

Randi Elisson scored eight points and had six rebounds with three steals while Jessica Schierkolk scored 10 points, four rebounds and three assists. Korey Smith scored eight points, four rebounds and three steals. Haley McDermott scored eight points and had six rebounds. Lizzy Lofink had three rebounds and led the team with five assists. Jules Ward had three assists while Melissa Ward grabbed three rebounds.

The Lady Cats also won Saturday against Rocky Mountain 44-33."We wanted to hold down the conference's leading scorer Marissa Arnold to 10 points or less and she got right at 10 so we achieved that goal," explained Sova. Pitting Melissa and Jules Ward defensively against Arnold, the rest of the team chipped in keeping Arnold's points low.

Some of Rocky Mountain's offensive rebounds happened due to the girls helping, according to Sova. "We also made some poor choices with our passes and our receivers didn't get in good positions to catch these passes as well. We need to clean this up," said Sova. According to Sova, the girls did a great job controlling the tempo and spreading the court. The Lady Grizz had a difficult time guarding the Lady Cats on the perimeter, especially McDermott.

McDermott had a great game making seven out of eight field goals attempts and six out of eight free throws. She also had two rebounds, two assists and two steals. Melissa Ward and Lofink did a great job blocking out all game and each had five rebounds. Elisson worked hard and added four rebounds. Schierkolk had three rebounds and two steals. Smith started with an early 3-pointer, two free throws, two rebounds and two assists.

According to Sova, another goal the team had was to shoot 40 percent from the field and they were right at 50 percent overall which was key to the game. Three other goals the girls had were not met. "We gave away the ball 21 times which was way over our goal. We wanted to get at least 13 offensive rebounds and only got six, and we wanted to limit Rocky to 12 free throw attempts and they got 19," said Sova.

According to coach Sova, the Lady Cats have plenty to work on this week as they prepare for their final two conference games. On Friday they travel to Shoshoni and then host Riverside on Saturday for senior night. Seniors being honored are Melissa Ward, Jessica Schierkolk, Randi Elisson and Janell Harvey. "They have meant a lot to the program and have been super leaders for us," said Sova.

Sova predicted that the Lady Cat's Regional Tournament seeding could end up anywhere from second to fourth seed depending on the last weekend of regular season play. "The girls are beginning to play much better so it should be an exciting next couple of weeks," said Sova.