Lady Tigers compete in three tough games in one week
The Lady Tigers had a busy week last week, taking on Boyd County on Tuesday, Wynot on Friday and Plainview on Saturday.
Boyd County 37, Osmond 32
(David Schmit)
The Lady Tigers took to the road yet again on Tuesday, Dec. 8, to take on the Boyd County Lady Spartans. Having dropped our first two games of the year, a goal was to increase our competitiveness in practices and overall game execution.
This game started close and stayed that way throughout. Despite the score, I definitely feel that we took a good step forward toward where we want to be.
Boyd County has a young guard and post (who happen to be sisters) who we knew we’d have to contain and, while we did a fairly good job on them, together, they managed 21 of their [Boyd County’s] overall 37 points.
Ultimately, we had some turnovers that led to points for them in the first quarter and shot selections in the fourth quarter that ended up being the difference in the game. I’m confident, though, that we’re closer to turning the corner and seeing some of these close games go our way.
Kiera Moes paced us with 10 points and 8 rebounds to lead our efforts. While no loss is enjoyable, the silver lining is the positive progress we’re making!
Junior Varsity Wins
(Kim Miller)
The junior varsity took on Boyd County and was able to come away with a win, 13-8. Boyd County gave a different look than we have had with a sagging 2-3 defense, which definitely threw us off our game.
We are an attacking-the-rim kind of team and it took us a bit to adjust away from that. We started the second quarter down 7-8 and the girls were able to make adjustments.
Moving the ball more efficiently in the second quarter resulted in some great offense, including working the ball inside and kicking it back out. It was also a fantastic quarter for us defensively, as Boyd County did not score again.
Bailey Schmit led the way with seven points. While Tessa Gardner did not score, she was vital for us with her decision-making against that 2-3 defense and really helped facilitate a lot of offense.
Wynot Varsity 54, Osmond 31
(David Schmit)
WYNOT — We took to the road yet again on Friday, Dec. 11, to face the preseason No. 3 team in Class D according to the Norfolk Daily News — Wynot. Coming into this game, we were fully aware of what Wynot was going to bring to the table — a full court man press, quality shooters across the board, and good team depth.
That said, our girls played a tremendous first half going into halftime only down 4 to the defending Class D2 state champions. Our ability to play great defense and have good ball movement on offense made all the difference in keeping us within striking distance.
The third quarter, however, Wynot increased their level of execution and began to wear us down. Because of their increased intensity, we began to turn the ball over a bit more. Despite our mistakes, we went into the fourth quarter only down 6.
I really felt that this was the game where we discovered how talented of a team we really have and when we put it all together, we can compete with anybody. Ultimately, the Lady Tigers fell to Wynot by a score of 54-31.
We were led in points by Macy Aschoff and Kiera Moes, who both had eight. In the rebounding column, we were paced by Kiera Moes, who had seven boards for us.
Every loss is able to teach you something going into the next game and this, undoubtedly, taught us that we’re continuing our positive progress and will turn that figurative corner soon.
Junior Varsity Falls
(Kim Miller)
Wynot is a very strong team fundamentally and we were unable to keep up; we lost this game 12-39. It was the first time we had a full court pressure against us this season and it was a bit of a hard knock lesson.
Through the process, the girls learned how to work together to get through that kind of pressure. Unfortunately, it was just a tough lesson.
Cali Gutz and Tessa Gardner led us with four points each. Gutz held a key role in the game for us, helping and facilitating the ball-handling with Bailey Schmit and providing us with confident, level play.
Plainview 60, Osmond 56
(David Schmit)
OSMOND — With no rest for the weary, we turned around on Saturday, Dec. 12, to face our neighbors to the west, the Plainview Lady Pirates. While in the past we have had some success against Plainview, it was very evident from film that they were a much-improved team and would test us in many ways.
That assumption held true to form as Plainview came out in a full-court man press and rattled us for the first four minutes of the first quarter. The second quarter played fairly similarly to the first and we struggled to find our offensive rhythm and keep Plainview off the attack. We went into halftime down 12 and had some adjustments to make.
We came out of halftime with a different mindset and it was really a tale of two halves. Our girls really put the “nose to the grindstone” and put our own full-court man press on which made a big difference in the game.
My biggest concern of putting a press on Plainview was how quickly they have broken presses on film, but to our girls’ credit, they really did a great job with our full-court man and changed the tone of the game.
The fourth quarter proved to be very nerve-wracking as we cut the Plainview lead to one point, with about three minutes to go in the game. However, Plainview sustained our rally and hung on to win 60-56 in a tough, hard-fought game.
I really am proud of our girls for their resiliency and fight especially in that second half. It’s real easy to let a tough first half get to you and dictate the rest of the game but we were not about to let that overwhelm us. That progress is still going in the right direction and when we can put together four quarters of basketball the way we know we can play, we’re going to be a tough team to stop.
I can’t say enough about the way Kiera has grown as one of our leaders this season. She paced our scoring tonight with 32 points, which is quite the statement in any game. She also led us in rebounds with nine, coming one rebound shy of a double-double.
The fun thing about our team is any one of our players can have a night like Kiera did tonight and that makes us a tough team to defend, knowing teams can’t just key in on one of our players. We did a lot better job getting the ball into our post and playing off of that and we’ll continue to make that a large part of what we do.
Plainview JV Falls
(Kim Miller)
Plainview wanted to make sure we understood how to handle the full-court pressure, as they came in on Saturday with a full-court man look as well. The girls did a great job of staying calm and working through it together. We were able to sneak away with a win, 10-9.
The end of the game was intense; we were behind 6-9 with under two minutes in the game. The girls were able to increase their defense pressure and get a steal. We missed the tying shot, but Tessa Gardner came up with the rebound and a great put back.
The girls then made another stop and Belle Vinson was fouled on a drive. She put in both her free throws to complete the comeback. Gardner led the way for us with four points.
Stay in the know!
To get news alerts on your cell phone, get the Cedar County News app in the ITunes store or in the Google Play Store.
