Sports

Westhope-Newburg girls bested by Mavericks, Honkers

By Tyler Ohmann

12/25/2012

The early-season struggles continued for the Westhope-Newburg Sioux girl’s basketball team this past week as they dropped two more contests, while still searching for their first win.

First on Tuesday the Sioux were flummoxed by a strong Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood (MLS) squad in  front of the Westhope crowd, and then on Friday the Sioux narrowly knocked off the Kenmare Honkers on the Honkers home court.

The losses dropped the Sioux to 0-4 to start the season.

On Tuesday the Sioux hosted the Mavericks of MLS and were unable to solve the riddle of the Mavericks press and consequently fell 61-39.

It started poorly for the Sioux as they were unable to break the Mavericks press right from the get go, and turned the ball over several times. It led to a 34-13 halftime lead for MLS.

The problem is something that had plagued the Sioux most of last season.

“Yeah, we are struggling getting the ball up the court, and that makes it easy for teams to prepare for us,” said Sioux head coach Jordan Cooper. “The girls just get flustered and put their heads down and dribble.”

The Sioux did settle down a bit in the second half, but the MLS lead was insurmountable. The Mavericks still out scored the Sioux 27-26 in the second half, but the game was much more competitive.

Jade Teske led the Sioux in scoring with 11 points, while Bailey Tofteland dropped in nine.
Shelbi Bahl led the Mavericks with 11 points, Callie Carlson had 10 and Shania Brackenbury had nine.

Cooper knows that Westhope-Newburg will eventually fix their mistakes, but hopes that it comes sooner than last season.

“Toward the end of last year, we started to get it, but we fell back again to start this year,” Cooper said. “They’ll figure it out, we just have to work on looking to pass and not just trying to dribble it up.”

The Sioux appeared to figure out something. On Friday Westhope-Newburg traveled to Kenmare and nearly upset the Honkers on their home court in a rousing 61-58 loss.

Westhope-Newburg did trail nearly the whole game, but remained close throughout. The Sioux trailed by four at halftime and only a bucket after three quarters.

However the Honkers maintained their lead and wound up with the win, thus denying the Sioux their first victory of the year.

Sophomore Lauren Mach was huge for the Sioux as she scored a game-high 25 points. Schell added 15 points, while Molly Lodoen and Tofteland each had eight to help the Sioux.

Four Honkers were in double digits in scoring, including leader Lexie Munson, who had 17 points.

The Sioux will continue on their search for their elusive first win after the Christmas break at 7:15 p.m. on Jan. 3 in Minot against Bishop Ryan.