Middle school girls confident

The middle school girls basketball teams have been very busy lately, but showing a lot of potential as they take on opponent after opponent. On Thursday, the eighth grade A team played Shoshoni and came out with their first win of the season, 26-9. “The girls played with confidence and were running their plays and seeing the open options,” coach Ashley Cleare said. “We are getting a lot of good looks at the basket, but just need our shots to go in.” Kadance Bowman made a half-court buzzer beater to end the third quarter, giving her the top scoring spot for the game with seven points. She was followed by Jayda Griffin with six points and Maggie Landon with five. “Defensively, the girls were aggressive and their help defense is getting better every day,” Cleare said. On Saturday, the eighth grade teams traveled to Riverton for a quad, facing off against Riverton and Lander. The 8A team played their best basketball game of the season so far, going into half time down by 10 points, 9-19. They came out in the third quarter out scoring Riverton 10-2. It was a battle the entire fourth quarter of the game with the girls being toppled by Riverton by just four points, 27-31. The 8B team also played hard against Riverton, losing 13-21. High scorer against Riverton were 8A, Dazlynn Hunt with 14 points, 12 of which were three-pointers. For 8B, the high scorer was Kayah Oliver with eight points. Lander was the next opponent for the eighth graders with 8A losing 32-21 and 8B losing 12-33. “The A team struggled against their (Lander’s) half-court press and had a hard time getting into an offensive rhythm,” Cleare said. “Defensively, both teams played aggressively and played with a lot of heart and hustle.” High score for the A team went to Kaitlin Barral with seven points and to Kayah Oliver on the B team with eight points. The seventh grade teams went to Lander for their quad where they faced off against Riverton and Lander as well. Both the 7A and 7B teams lost to Riverton with the A team losing 10-24 and the B team falling 14-22. High scorer for the A team was Brailee DeVries with four points and Sofia Gerber being the top scorer for the B team. On the bright side, however, both A and B teams won over Lander, with the A team coming out on top 15-12 and the B team winning 13-5. High scorers for these games were Austin Slagle on the A team and Waikeli Balstad for the B team.