Lady Rattlers drop three

The Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers played some great teams this past weekend according to Head Coach Mark Gillies. It was the last game against the Wind River Lady Cougars where the Lady Rattlers lost 42 to 41.

“Honestly, it was just one of those games where we were doing some of the little things wrong and Wind River was playing really hard,” Gillies said. “They hit a shot with 10 seconds left to take the lead and we had turnovers, way too many turnovers, in that game and it was kind of let down.”

LSRV’s losses to the other two teams played this weekend did not upset Gillies.

“Both are 3A teams and both are just good,” Gillies said. “They are definitely going to be in the mix in 3A when it comes time for State.”

Gillies was talking about the teams of Mountain View which was the team they played first on December 9 and Lyman whom they played the next day on December 10.

In the game against Mountain View the Lady Rattlers lost 45 to 34. Lyman beat the LSRV 63 to 23.

“In the game against Mountain View we had an 8 point lead at one time in the first half,” Gillies said. “We had the lead at half-time and it was really a close game. We lost by 11, but they scored two 3’s at the very end. We were right there until the very end and I thought the girls played really hard in that game.”

Gillies said starter Kinlie Montgomery got hurt in the beginning four minutes of the game against Mountain View which changed the team’s rotation.

“We had to fight hard and I felt we did some really good things,” Gillies said. “I was really proud of how hard the girls went at it.”

Gillies said the points scored against Lyman made him proud of what the Lady Rattlers were accomplishing against such a strong 3A team.

“If Lyman stays healthy, it won’t be a surprise to me if they are in the championship for 3A,” Gillies said. “They beat us by 40 points, but they are just such a good team, I felt we had some good looks against a quality team which is important in building confidence.”

“With Wind River, it almost felt like we were half asleep the whole game,” Gillies said. “It was a little disappointing, but I can’t take away from Wind River and how hard they played. They did things they needed to do to win and we didn’t do the things we needed to do to win.”

Gillies knows this week’s practice will benefit from playing the three games, even if the Lady Rattlers didn’t come up with a win.

Gillies said he was pleased with his team on how balanced they are in scoring. There was no one player who scored higher than all the others.

“This makes it harder for opposing coaches to scout us out. From these past games, we are able to say this is what we want to build on and these are the changes we want to make,”Gillies said. “The team will need to be prepared as we face this weekend.”

LSRV will be facing Burlington, Upton and Dubois this weekend at the Shoshoni tournament.