Sports
Bottineau cruises into district playoffs
Tyler Ohmann
02/25/2014
If momentum was what the Bottineau Stars wanted heading into the District 11 Tournament, they got it.
Two big time wins to close out the regular season set the table for the Stars heading into the district tournament that begins on Feb. 28 in Rugby.
The Stars topped Des Lacs-Burlington (DLB) 60-29 and Kenmare 62-23 to conclude their regular season with four straight wins.
“It gives us a good drive set going in there,” said junior post Kennedy Olson. “Because when we go in winning, we have a better mind set, not that ‘oh, we just lost.’”
On Monday that winning drive was evident when the Stars easily took care of business against DLB.
The Stars defense was on display early as they held the Lakers to only two first-quarter points, and opened up a 12-2 lead.
By halftime that lead was 20, and proved to be insurmountable as the Stars went on to win by 31.
Junior Stephanie Brenden had a huge game for the Stars, leading them with 15 points and eight assists, while swiping four steals.
Senior Danielle McDonald also had 15 points, and added 13 rebounds for a double-double.
Olson had 11 points, while Megan Saville added 10 points and Courtney Gallagher had 10 rebounds for the Stars in victory.
The Lakers were led by Courtney Vogel’s nine points.
The win also exacted a little revenge for the Stars, who were ousted out of the Region 6 Tournament in volleyball this fall by the Lakers. Many of the girls on both teams on Monday, were on those teams as well.
Bottineau won their fourth straight and improved to 11-8 on the season with the huge win over Kenmare at home on Friday night.
Once again the Stars defense shined early on as the Honkers did not find the basket once in the first four minutes of the game. At the end of one quarter they had only one bucket, and the Stars held a double-digit lead.
The game spun out of control for the Honkers and into focus for the Stars, who strove on to win by 39.
McDonald had 14 points to lead the Stars, despite injuring her ankle in the third quarter. McDonald injured the ankle previously this season.
Brenden had 12 points, seven assists, six rebounds and four steals to put in a complete game for Bottineau in the victory.
Olson was happy that the offense was strong, especially in the half court, and from everyone on the team.
“We ran more of an offense than we normally do, at least at the beginning,” Olson said. “We played as a team, even the bench girls, and it was nice to see from the whole team.”
Olson will no doubt be a key cog in for the Stars, who will enter the district tournament as the three seed.
They will play Dunseith to kick off their tournament as the final game of the day at approximately 7:30 p.m.
Bottineau beat the Dragons 50-47 in Dunseith in the regular season, but they want more this time.
“That does help a lot,” Olson said about the regular season win over the Dragons. “But it was such a close game, we are hoping to beat them even more than last time.”
In order to do that, and then reach their ultimate goal of winning the championship, the Stars will likely have to play in a lot of close games.
However, that’s something that they are used to, they’ve played in seven games determined by seven points or less, and are 5-2 in those games.
“We’ve had a lot of practice in those games,” Olson said. “We just have to work with our momentum, but we’ve won most of the close games that we’ve been in, and we’re just going to use that to our advantage.”
If the Stars win the opening round match up against Dunseith they will play the winner of second seed Velva and seventh seed Westhope-Newburg on Saturday.