Girls host Tongue River Saturday

Last Friday, the varsity Lady Cats basketball team hosted the 3A #4 ranked Lyman Eagles with Thermpolis falling short to Lyman 43-30.

“We started out good against Lyman and held our own for the first quarter. We would be tied up at 9 to 9. We decided we would play man to man against them for the game. It would end up working as we had played a 2-3 zone against them last time we played,” said coach David Villa.

At halftime The Lady Cats would be down by 4 with with a score of 19-15. At halftime the team discussed getting paint touches with their offense, and for defense to close out on their shooting guards and to continue to help on post defense.

“In the third quarter the Cats would come out slow offensively and could not buy a bucket. In the fourth quarter the girls started to gain momentum again but not enough to catch up,” said coach Villa.

Scoring: Seniors Ruth Johnson 6 points and Jayci Basse with 1, juniors Dazlynn Hunt 4, Ina King with 2, Sophomore Hanna Hill 1, freshman Kamryn Farrell 5 and the team would be led in scoring by freshman Jayssie Owsley with 11 points.

Coach Villa added, “Overall we were proud of their efforts. We had improved on breaking the press and our man defense contained them better than our zone. Last time the score was Lyman 71 to us 37. Though the score was lower, the Cats kept them from ramping up the score. It was good to see the team rally in the fourth quarter,” said coach Villa.

On Saturday the Lady Cats would face the 3A #3 ranked Mountain View, with Mountain View winning at the end, 54 to 40. 

Coach Villa stated, “I wanted to see if any of our confidence would carry into this game. The first quarter would be rough. We could not score; the shots were falling short and our flow on offense was not there. On the defense end we wanted to play man and double when needed against Mountain View #23 Covolo, which has been averaging double digits all season long.”

Covolo would score 14 points against the Lady Cats in the first quarter and would end up with 24 for the game. “She was a tough assignment, but the girls never quit working,” added coach Villa.

At halftime, Mountain View was up 33-9 and would have thought the game was over but as usual you can’t count the Lady Cats out. “The Lady Cats would begin a nice rally possession by possession in the third quarter. At halftime the team discussed getting paint touches and being willing to kick out for threes. We felt we needed to stay in a 2-3 zone so we could collapse on Covolo. Our shots started going in and our confidence in each other began to show,” said coach Villa.

The Lady Cats would win the quarter 13-12.  “At one point we had the chance to get the game into single digits,” added coach Villa. The Lady Cats would also get a win in the fourth quarter, 18 to 9. “It was nice to see the crowd get into the game,” said coach Villa.

Scoring: Johnson 5, Basse 9, Hunt 6, King 4, Austin Slagle 4, Owsley 8 and Farrell 4.

Coach Villa said, “In both games there was great growth of confidence and the reality that we could compete against some top five ranked teams in 3A.

This week, the Lady Cats had a conference game on Tuesday against Lovell and action against Tongue River on Saturday. See the HSC High School calendar on this page for Saturday’s game times.