Sports

Stars fight for region spot

Tyler Ohmann

03/05/2013

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The Bottineau Stars advanced to the final day of the District 11 Tournament this past weekend with a win over Drake-Anamoose on Saturday in a loser-out game.

The fifth-seeded Stars fell in Friday’s opening round to fourth-seeded Dunseith 53-34.

“In the first game the girls were just not mentally prepared,” said Stars head coach Joe Bender. “The girls did not play well, and they seemed sluggish, and I think the girls were really disappointed.”

“I think they realized that they needed to prepare a little differently for big games,” Bender added.

In the game the Stars fell behind early and were unable to recover against the Dragons.

Bender gave a post-game speech to try and rally the Stars to keep their region dreams alive.

“After the game I told them that we need to be better mentally prepared for the game, and we need to start out with a little more heart and drive,” Bender said.

The speech worked as the Stars came out strongly against the Drake-Anamoose Raiders in Saturday’s loser-out game.

“They came out really good against Drake,” Bender said. “We started out with a press, which I think got their attitudes a little more focused.”

Bottineau’s defense stepped up in the contest as they held the Raiders to 19 points, and only eight second-half points in the 49-19 win.

“I think we did really good and moved the ball real well, and played great defense,” Bender said. “We held them to one of their season lows, so I was really happy with that effort.”

Offensively 11 different Stars players scored in the win. They were led by sophomore Stephanie Brenden’s 12 points. Junior Courtney Gallagher added nine points and Maria Diepolder added eight points.

The Stars will play at 4:30 p.m. tonight against Rugby for the shot to advance to regions. The game was postponed due to weather from yesterday. Rugby fell 44-34 to Towner-Granville-Upham in the semifinals on Saturday.

In their only meeting this season the Stars fell 56-41 to the Panthers.