Sports
Two wins vault Stars atop district
Tyler Ohmann
01/28/2014
All in all it was a pretty successful week for the Bottineau Stars as they improved their District 11 record to 3-1 with a pair of district victories, which put them in a tie for first place.
They then capped off their week by holding the state’s top-ranked team to their lowest output of the season.
It all started last Tuesday night as the Stars hosted Drake-Anamoose in a district matchup and blew them out of the water in an 80-31 win.
It was all Stars from the get go as they scored 21 points in the first quarter and 41 in the first half to open up a 28-point halftime lead.
From there the Stars kept their foot on the gas pedal and cruised to a 49-point victory over the Lady Raiders.
Megan Saville scored a career-best 18 points for the Stars and junior Stephanie Brenden added 17. Danielle McDonald and Jocelyn Jahner each added 10 points.
Sydney Seehafer had 11 points to lead the Raiders in the losing effort.
The Stars continued rolling along as they traveled to Dunseith on Friday and topped the Lady Dragons 50-47.
The game was close throughout but a few individual efforts kept the Stars ahead in the contest.
Brenden topped the Stars in scoring with 16 points and added a team-best seven steals in the victory. McDonald had a double-double with 10 points and a team-leading 13 rebounds. Maria Diepolder, a junior, had a season-high 15 points.
The wins were a great welcome for the Stars who were in the middle of the district pack at 1-1 entering the week.
“It’s very important because now we’re 3-1 in the district and we’re sitting good,” said senior Courtney Gallagher. “We have Rugby coming up Tuesday, and we’re super excited for that.”
“We’re just really pumped up and playing well as a team right now,” Gallagher added.
Despite a 70-26 loss in the week’s final game on Saturday, it was a moral victory for the Stars against the No. 1 Bishop Ryan Lions.
The game was never really within reach for the Stars, but they did manage to play some good defense in spurts and held the Lions to their lowest scoring total of the year.
“We were really focused on defense, and we knew we weren’t exactly going to come out with a win, but we were going to work our hardest, and think we showed them and everyone else how good of a team we actually are this year,” Gallagher said.
Hannah Stewart had a game-leading 25 points as the Lions were without Gabbie Bohl, one of their leaders. The Stars did manage to keep Lions point guard Anika Rovig in check on the day though, and held her to only seven points.
Scoring for the Stars was spread out, but McDonald, Brenden and Saville each had five points, while Gallagher had four points and two boards. McDonald led the team with four rebounds.
The week’s 2-1 finish pushed the Stars overall record to 6-7 on the season, and vaulted them to a first place tie in the district standings.
The road will get tougher this week though as the Stars take on two of the best teams in the district as they travel to Rugby tonight and then host Velva at 6 p.m. on Thursday night.
Gallagher points out shooting as the Stars’ main cause for concern the rest of the way out. She believes that if they can improve the offensive flow, the team will be right on track.
“We need to work on shooting the ball more, and that’s our biggest problem right now is not getting enough points,” Gallagher said. “We’re working our butts off on defense, and when we get on offense we don’t take a shot or take bad shots.”
“We have some good shots, so we’re doing OK, but we really have to shoot the ball,” Gallagher added.
Regardless it will take a team effort if Bottineau hopes to continue their success.