Sports
Sioux continue with new roles
Tyler Ohmann
01/21/2014
The season grind continued for the Westhope-Newburg (WN) girl’s basketball team.
The Sioux girls fell three times this past week, twice in non-district match ups, and one District 11 loss.
First last Monday the Sioux dropped their second district game, falling 76-43 to the Sawyer Flashes in Newburg. On Thursday the Sioux traveled to Stanley and the Blue Jays topped the Sioux 66-37. Finally last Saturday the Sioux were unable to get past Berthold as they fell 47-28.
First on Monday the Sioux lost to Sawyer, as the Flashes used a 43-21 advantage to take down the Sioux by 33 in a district contest.
Paige Brabrandt scored 24 and three other Sawyer players reached double digits in the win.
For the Sioux Molly Lodoen was strong inside as she had 18 points, nine rebounds and dished out eight assists. The junior also added two steals and a pair of blocks. Fellow junior Amber Hall added eight points and six assists.
Sioux head coach Jordan Cooper has been happy with Lodoen’s play of late.
“Molly (Lodoen) has been playing really well for us,” Cooper said. “She’s been our point guard for so many years, and now she has to play underneath, and she’s averaging like 14 rebounds per game.”
From there the Sioux traveled to Stanley on Thursday, but again found themselves on the losing end of a 29-point margin.
Stanley led by eight after one quarter, but continued piling on the lead, going up by 14 at halftime and eventually winning by 29.
Three Blue Jays combined for 38 of their 66 points.
The Sioux were again led by Lodoen and Hall. Lodoen finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds, while Hall had nine points.
Senior Ashlyn Hube dished out 12 assists to go with five points.
For the Sioux, who are without their leading scorer and rebounder Lauren Mach, it is a bit of a mess right now, with several players out of position.
“We need a little more help defensively, our rebounding, and we just have to get into people,” Cooper said. “It’s kind of a scramble right now.”
Finally on Saturday the Sioux dropped their fifth straight game as they were unable to score enough to beat Berthold who topped them by 19.
WN actually led 10-6 after the first quarter, and things seemed to be going their way.
However, the Sioux scored only two points in the second quarter and found themselves down by nine at halftime. The second half continued the way of the second quarter, and after three quarters they were down 34-16. WN scored 12 points in the final frame, but the lead was insurmountable by then.
“The first quarter looked good, but we’re so down, we have three girls that are out,” Cooper said. “We have to ride those first five, and then we just get real tired right now, and when we get tired we make a lot of mistakes.”
The Sioux added in a press into their game plan, and during the press junior Lakin Ballantyne fell when defending a Bomber and she hit her head hard on the court.
She was unable to get up, and the ambulance was called to take her off the court on a stretcher. It was a scary moment for the fans and players in attendance.
Play resumed after about 30 minutes, and the Bombers finished the game with the win.
They were led by Hannah Hornberger’s 16 points in the win.
WN was led by Hall and Lodoen once again. Lodoen had a team-best 16 rebounds and also added 10 points for a double-double. Hall had a team-high 11 points and also added five rebounds and a pair of steals.
Cooper said the game came down to a combination of fatigue and missing makeable shots.
“The girls are working hard, but they are just dog tired by the end of it, and we’re always climbing that uphill mountain,” Cooper said. “With the other teams that are so much taller than us, but today we played well defensively, especially in the first half.”
“We missed a lot of bunnies today, layups, but we’ll try and fix some mistakes, right some wrongs,” Cooper added.
The Sioux, now 1-8 and 0-2 in District 11 play, will try and find a win as they play at 5:45 p.m. on Friday in Velva. They will also travel to Burlington on Monday to take on Des Lacs-Burlington.
WN also played winless St. John last night in St. John, but scores and stats were unavailable by press time.