Sports
Sioux split week; beat DLB, fall to TGU
Tyler Ohmann
01/31/2012
The Westhope-Newburg girl’s basketball team dropped a district match this past week, but upset a region six foe as they split their week’s games.
First on Monday the Sioux downed Region 6 opponent Des Lac-Burlington 57-50 in and overtime thriller.
Westhope-Newburg trailed the entire game, but rallied from an eight-point deficit at the end of the third quarter to force overtime. In the overtime the Sioux outscored the Lakers 10-3 to capture their fifth win of the season.
“We’ve had to deal with a lot of injuries and we’ve dealt with a lot of adversity,” Cooper said. “That is the motto of our team: we’re going to have to play tired, we’re going to have to play hurt, we’re going to have to play sick.” “And these girls, they do not give up, they just play hard,” Cooper added.
One of those girls is junior Hadlee Schell, who finished with eight points in the win. Schell has been absent from the Sioux lineup until recent games, as she has battled ailments and injury.
Three Sioux players scored in double figures in the win led by junior Bailey Tofteland, who had 16 points. Also in double digits were junior Jade Teske (14 points) and Lauren Mach (10 points).
The Sioux hoped to use the momentum from Monday’s win to get past Towner-Granville-Upham on Thursday.
However, the game never went the way of the Sioux who fell behind by eight after the first quarter. The Titan lead built from there and ended in a 61-44 win.
The Titans full court press and quickness forced the Sioux to commit turnovers thoughout the contest.
“In girls basketball if you have speed, you have a chance to win every game, and we don’t have that,” Cooper said. “The Towner’s, the Velva’s and the Bottineau’s they have a chance to win every game, because of speed and being able to handle the ball. We struggle in those two areas and that’s kind of been our achilles heel.”
And that lack of speed led to mistakes, like turnovers and poor shot attempts.
“We can match up with teams, it’s just that we’ll make some big mistakes in bad times,” Cooper said. “We will dig ourselves into a hole, and it’s tough to get out of a hole, especially against good teams.”
As for matching up against the Titan’s center and leader Mattie Schmitt, Cooper believes the Sioux can do it.
“We can match up with Mattie Schmitt, but we just got in a bad way a couple of times, and didn’t have help side,” Cooper said. “So, she ate us up down there, because we just weren’t quick to rotate.”
That allowed Schmitt to score a team-high 21 points in the Titans 17-point win.
The Sioux trailed by double digits throughout the second half, and Cooper said the Sioux need to work on their intensity and urgency when trailing late in games.
“We need to pick up on the sense of urgency in the fourth quarter, being down 14 with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, we need to have that urgency,” Cooper said. “But they play hard, and they always do.”
Lauren Mach had a solid game, scoring 22 points to lead all scorers in the game. Mach also had 11 rebounds a steal and a block.
Schell added nine and Tofteland had eight in the loss.
Following this past week’s contest the Sioux dropped to 1-3 in District 11 play and are 5-9 overall on the season.
The Sioux will host district rival Bottineau at 7:15 p.m., tonight in Westhope, and then will travel to take on Rugby on Friday.
Cooper knows the contest against Bottineau will be tough.
“Bottineau’s Bottineau, and they always will be,” Cooper said. “They gave Bishop Ryan a run, and Mike’s (Forsberg) always got them playing good.”
“They will be good come tournament time, and they will probably be playing good Tuesday, so we’re going to have to come ready and take care of the basketball,” Cooper added.
Notes:
- Lauren Mach is leading the Sioux right now averaging 10.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game.