Sports
Stars finish one game shy of regions
Tyler Ohmann
03/12/2013
A 62-40 loss to Rugby ended the Bottineau Stars basketball season this past Tuesday in a region qualifier game at the District 11 Tournament in Dunseith.
“The girls tried and played hard all the way to the end,” said Bottineau head coach Joe Bender. “They never gave up.”
The Stars battled with the Panthers in the first quarter and trailed 10-7 after one period, but Shea Heidlebaugh heated up in the second quarter as the Panthers scored 24 points and led by 23 at halftime.
“Our gameplan was to stop Hovland and Wangerin and we knew that Shea (Heidlebaugh) could shoot from the outside but, wow, I just didn’t expect that,” Bender said. “We just kept cheating off of her and she kept hitting those shots. She shot the ball well, I have to give her credit.”
“The third and fourth quarter we played pretty good and stayed with them, but we just couldn’t dig ourselves out,” Bender added.
The teams played even from there on out, but the Stars were unable to swing the game their way.
Heidlebaugh had a game-best 21 points and freshman Taylor Wangerin had 18 points for Rugby.
Bottineau was led by junior Danielle McDonald, who had 13 points. Senior McKenzie Jensen added 12 for the Stars in the loss.
Bender is still pretty happy with Bottineau’s effort throughout the season, and the progress they made throughout the season.
“They would just never give up and they played hard all the time,” Bender said. “They had lapses sometimes, but overall they just always played really hard.”
The loss dropped the Stars overall season record to 8-14 in Bender’s first season as head coach.
Bender is optimistic for next season, where the girls will have a full year of his system under their belt.
“I think next year it’s just going to be a lot easier as far as us being on the same page,” Bender said. “All the girls that I have returning are just gym rats, they always want to be in the gym.”
“They want to put in the time in the effort in the offseason, because you have got to have that off season work to get the rewards at the end, and these younger girls are ready for that.”
Evidence has already been seen that they are willing to work hard this off season.
“I told them to take a break, get away from basketball for awhile,” Bender said. “Of course most of them didn’t. They were in the gym the next day shooting.”