Patriot Girls Drop First Game to Oakland-Craig
The Lady Patriots are now 2-1 after three games. Their first loss came against Class C-2 #4 ranked Oakland-Craig on Tuesday, December 4. Frustrated about the previous loss, they then annihilated Winside on Thursday, December 6.
Against Oakland-Craig, the JV girls started the night off on a sour note against the Knights. They battled hard, but lost with a score of 5-11 in two quarters.
Once the JV games ended, the Varsity girls took the floor and played a long, hard game. The Patriots started off slow and were behind by eight points at the end of the first quarter. They narrowed the lead throughout the game, but still lost 29-42 to the undefeated Knights.
"We dug ourselves an early hole falling behind Oakland-Craig in the first quarter, but put ourselves back into the game tying it at 16 a piece,” said girls head coach Matt Murren. “Our effort was there all night, we just need to continue to work on getting the ball in the hoop.”
Senior Hannah Kasik led the team with 13 points and 4 rebounds in the loss.
On December 6, the Patriots faced the Winside Wildcats in the first regular season home game of the year. Both levels definitely did not disappoint.
JV kicked off the night strong with a win. The played hard and came out on top with a score of 49-8.
The Varsity game was a similar story. At half time, the Lady Pats had held the Wildcats to only three points due to great defense and offensive intensity; the ending score was 64-5.
The Patriots led a very balanced attack offensively, with 6 players scoring 8 points or more.
“Against Winside, the girls came out with great energy on both ends of the court,” Murren said. “Defensively we were able to force some turnovers leading us into our offensive transition. We handled the basketball well and were able to spread the ball around for a lot of different looks. At the end of the game, we were able to hit 90% of our game goals which is a record for our program!"
“We were definitely ready to come in and take the win against Oakland. Unfortunately, we played well but we just let them score too often,” said senior, Kaegan Held said. “We came off of this loss and wanted to get back on track. We did just that. We executed well against Winside and came out with the win. We are all excited to keep it rolling and have a great season!”
Oakland-Craig Stats:
1 2 3 4 Final
C-L 4 12 10 3 29
O-C 12 10 9 11 42
Individual Stats: (points, rebounds, assists, steals)
Ashlynn Novotny--2, 3, 4, 1; Hannah Kasik--13, 4, 1, 1; Beth Wiese--6, 8, 0, 0; Kaegan Held--4, 5, 2, 3; Halee Steffensmeier--3, 4, 0, 0; Paige Moore--1, 3, 0, 0; Alissa Kasik--0, 2, 0, 0
Winside Stats:
1 2 3 4 Final
C-L 17 19 15 13 64
Winside 0 0 2 3 5
Individual Stats: (points, rebounds, assists, steals)
Ashlynn Novotny--8, 7, 5, 5; Hannah Kasik--10, 2, 0, 1; Kennedy Settje--2, 3, 0, 0; Beth Wiese--4, 3, 0, 1; Kaegan Held--11, 2, 0, 1; Bailey Lemburg--0, 2, 0, 0; Halee Steffensmeier--3, 1, 0, 3; Cassidy Hoffman--8, 2, 1, 2; Paige Moore--9, 4, 0, 0; Alissa Kasik--9, 4, 2, 1