Cowgirl JV basketball coach Gary Anderson reported on his team’s opening games. Members of the team this year are: Delia Swanson, Summer Traub, Olyvia Olson, Nikki Kapka, Sawyer Morrical, Kennedy Trca, Kayleigh Dow, Emma State, Melandy Borrales and Payton DeCoster.
They started the season on November 23 at Southeast Valley, dropping a close 40-37 game. Scoring: Morrical 13, Traub 10, Olson 4, Trca 4, Swanson, State and Kapka 2 each. “This was a game of adjustments and learning a new system,” said Anderson. “The girls are adapting to running new defenses and offenses along with trying to push the ball up the court as much as possible. Although we didn’t get the win here, it was a matter of getting on the court after a long preseason of practicing and trying things out they have been working on.”
They hosted Eagle Grove on November 30 and won 55-20. Scoring: Morrical 16, Swanson 16, Traub 10, State 5, Olson 4, Kapka and Dow 2 each. “The girls jumped out to an early lead and never trailed,” said Anderson. “We were able to run our offense a little better, along with installing our full court press which caused the Eagles some turnovers resulting in some easy baskets for us. We also hit several nice outside shots and three-pointers in this game. Rebounding and taking care of the ball to prevent turnovers improved in this game, but is still something we will continue to work on in practice. Sawyer and Delia had nice overall games, but some nice balanced scoring by everyone was good to see.”
They played at South Hardin on December 1 and won 34-11. Scoring: Swanson 10, Morrical 9, Traub 6, Olson 5, State and Kapka 2 each. “We got off to a bit of a slow start,” said Anderson. “I think playing back to back nights proved to make us somewhat sluggish at the start. We fell behind early, but started to find our legs in the second quarter. The full court press seems to provide the energy we need to get things going and we were able to start putting up some points in the second half. We led 12-11 at halftime, but staying with the full court press and 2-3 zone in the second half kept South Hardin scoreless for the remainder of the game.”
Next up was a home game with St. Edmond on December 4 which resulted in a 55-12 win. Scoring: Morrical 21, Traub 12, Swanson 5, Dow 5, Trca 5, State 4 and Olson 3. “We were able to put together a couple good practices between games and started to really work on some things,” said Anderson. “This was the first game where I started to see us try some new things that we’ve been working on. We shot 25 free throws in this game, so that’s a good indication of the girls being more aggressive towards the basket and creating offense. Sawyer and Olyvia played a nice floor game, hitting some outside shots and showing better judgement in their decision making of knowing when to push the ball or slow it down. Summer also had a nice all around game. It’s good to see the ball being shared, passed better and finding the open girl.”
