Lady Panthers charged by Broncs

A game that remained a tied game through much of the first quarter turned ugly for the Lady Panthers Saturday afternoon against the Burns' Lady Broncs.

By the middle of the second quarter the Lady Broncs were playing aggressively and outscored the Lady Panthers by 12 points. Haley Soles seemed to take a lot of the aggression, with a slap in the face during a block and tripping through the Broncs defense whenever she had the ball.

The Lady Panthers fought for the ball and despite the aggressiveness from the Bronc defense were able to score points. The second quarter ended with the Lady Panthers down by 17.

The Lady Panthers continued to fight for the ball, but were down by 25 at the end of the third quarter and only managed 3 points to the Broncs' 16.

The Lady Panthers fought to eke out 7 more points, but it wasn't enough. The Panthers fell 45-76.

Saturday's loss against Burns and Friday's 40-52 loss against Lusk put the Lady Panthers at 6-15 overall and 0-8 for conference. Both games were Saratoga's last regular conference battles before regionals.

Head coach Matt Love said his girls both shot and rebounded well during Saturday's game.

"They shot very well, that's all there was to it," he said. "It was 18 to 20 at the end of the first quarter, then they outscored us 20-7 in the second as they were hitting from everything. Five different players had the team's  total of nine 3-pointers, and more than half of the 3-pointers were from at least 5' behind the arc. We rebounded well, when there was a rebound, and like I said, they didn't miss much." 

Love said he hoped the girls would have played better in the first half during Friday's game.

"We didn't play very well in the first half, and it came back to bite us," he said. "We were digging ourselves out of a hole the whole game, and you can't do that."

After a rough first half, Love said the girls bounced back to score more points in the second.

"The first half was rough and I just felt like they were sluggish, but in the second half they came out and worked hard," he said. "I was happy with the second half, but you've got to put your four quarters together. The second half everyone played decent, but in the first half we couldn't get the ball to drop and we weren't hustling back on defense. We were making a lot of mistakes you don't want to be making in mid-February."

The Lady Panthers play their last game before regionals against Hanna-Elk Mountain-Medicine Bow Friday. Game time begins at 4 p.m. in Hanna.

Love also named the season highlights for the junior varsity Lady Panthers, who lost 33-44 Friday, but won 47-38 Saturday.

"Our JV girls played very well and got a win, improving their overall record to six wins and eight losses on the season," he said. "Our JV is finished for the most part, as we will probably only play two quarters of JV on Friday in Hanna. To recap our JV this season, the leading scorer was Sarah Burton, as she scored 129 points for the season. For the past two games, she had 17 points on Friday here with Lusk and 20 on Saturday here with Burns, totaling 37 points for the weekend."

The junior varsity's season highs with points per game is as follows:

Meredith Lincoln played a couple of quarters of JV for the first few games to start the season, now playing varsity only. Her high was 12 points against Pine Bluffs.

Shaelee Hamann with 11 points versus Burns.

Haley Soles was also playing a couple of quarters earlier in the season, now playing varsity only. Her season game high was 10 points against Little Snake River.

Cruz Escobedo with 9 points versus Burns, and 9 points against Big Piney.

Alicia Zaragoza with 9 points against Pine Bluffs.

Kelsie Samson with 8 points versus Little Snake River.

Peyten Fisher's season game high was 8 points against Little Snake River.

Shayla Sandoval had 8 points versus Burns.

Katie Loose played junior varsity earlier in the season, but is now playing varsity only. She had 8 points against Little Snake River.

Jessie Black with 4 points against Lusk.

Maddison Sharp finishing with 4 points against Walden, Colo.