Lady Rattlers go 1-3 in Casper

The Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers were able to play three games at the 1A State Basketball Tournament this weekend. Unfortunately, those three games did not all go the Lady Rattlers’ way as they went 1-2 to end their season.

“We knew that when you get to State that we would have to put three solid games together and, unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that this weekend,” said Head Coach Mark Gillies.

The Lady Rattlers faced off against the Upton Lady Bobcats—the eventual State Runner-Ups—on Thursday afternoon. On Friday they faced the Hulett Lady Red Devils before facing the Kaycee Lady Bucs on Saturday.

“I thought this weekend was a good experience for our girls,” Gillies said.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Bobcats

The Lady Rattlers came into the state tournament as the No. 3 West Seed and were matched up against Upton for the quarterfinal round. The Lady Bobcats, despite being the No. 2 East Seed, had ruled over the 1A Northeast Conference with an 8-0 record. 

Unfortunately for the Lady Rattlers, Upton would take the lead in the 1st quarter, 15-9, and keep that lead throughout the entire game. Though LSRV outscored the Lady Bobcats in the 4th quarter, 20-12, the scoring by Upton in the first three quarters wasn’t enough for the Lady Rattlers to overcome.

Skylynn Ready led LSRV as she scored 13 points and had 8 rebounds and 3 assists. Destre Kaisler followed with 7 points and 3 steals, Banessa Saenz scored 7 points and had 2 steals and Kylie Evans scored 7 points and had 4 rebounds and 1 assist.

The final score was 62-51, Upton.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Red Devils

Following their loss to Upton the day before, the Lady Rattlers went on to face Hulett on Friday morning. The Lady Red Devils had faced the Cokeville Lady Panthers on Thursday evening and had been dealt a more than 40-point loss before heading to the consolation bracket.

While the Lady Rattlers didn’t deal as large of a loss to Hulett, it was still a win for LSRV which sent them onto the consolation championship.

Ready, again, led the team as she scored 16 points and had 2 assists. Evans scored 11 points and had 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. Katelyn Englehart followed with 9 points, 7 rebounds and 2 steals and Kaisler scored 8 points and had 2 rebounds and 2 steals.

The final score was 58-47, Lady Rattlers.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Bucs

The final game for LSRV was on Saturday morning as they faced the Lady Bucs. Kaycee had dealt a loss to the Saratoga Lady Panthers the day before to go to the consolation championships. They would ultimately deal a loss to LSRV as well.

Englehart would lead the Lady Rattlers against Kaycee as she scored 8 points and had 5 rebounds, 1 assist and 3 steals. Ready followed with 6 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists while Evans scored 6 points and had 7 rebounds and 2 assists as well. Montgomery scored 5 points and had 10 rebounds and 3 assists.

The final score was 42-38, Kaycee.

Season thoughts

“I thought that the season was an overall success. Going to State is not easy and we were able to make it,” said Gillies. “I thought that the girls played really hard all season and that we improved throughout the season. The girls played hard and very unselfishly all year long. I think we were a team that, when we played well, was really tough to beat and that teams really had to come up with a good game plan and execute it to beat us.”

Gillies added he was proud of all the girls on the team with their effort all season and he was looking forward to preparing for next season