Congratulations to the CGD Cowgirls for a hard-fought season. When asked, Coach Liz Ennis provided an in-depth reflection and summary of this season for the CGD Cowgirls, “We started our year confidently with four wins out of the gate. As we began to play tougher opponents who played more pressure defense, it exposed some of our weaknesses-poor choices in our offensive set, lack of offensive spacing, and poor passing in breaking full court pressure. The Christmas break brought us some extra time to continue drilling fundamentals and work on better defense. We added some new offensive sets as well to try to get scorers open. January was an intense month, with three of the four weeks having three games packed into them. This left us a lot less time for practice. We struggled through some games, but were able to get wins vs Eagle Grove one night and at St. Edmond the very next night. Some individual growth could be seen in some girls, especially a few of the underclassmen.”
“By the end of the season, we were handling full court pressure better and cutting down turnovers for the most part. Our last two games were really not an indication of the improvement we had shown. The Iowa Falls game was an exciting game that came down to a heartbreaking loss by two points at the buzzer. The Algona game was played with intensity and we lost in the final minutes. If our younger girls can take the lessons from games like that and learn how to finish, we can have a brighter future. It's going to take all the returning players getting into the gym and putting forth a lot of work in the off season. If we can look at a team like Estherville, the last team we played in our first round tournament loss, and strive to move like they did on defense and attack and work together on offense, we can be better next year. It's all about trust and working together and unfortunately we lacked that at times this year.”
Ennis finished with acknowledging the players, saying, “Individually, we say goodbye to five seniors-Kaylie Dow, Nikki Kapka, Olyvia Olson, Delia Swanson, and Summer Traub. In our junior class, four girls show promise for next season- Payton DeCoster, Lexie Lane, Emma State, and Kennedy Trca. Our lone varsity sophomore was point guard Sawyer Morrical. And freshmen finishing the season on varsity were Elliot Ennis and Kennedy Jackson. The All Conference meeting was held on Sunday, February 13 where each of the eight conference coaches nominated their chosen players and voted for those deserving of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd team honors. From Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, two players received all conference honors this year. Lexie Lane, who was 5th in the conference overall in scoring and in steals, and 15th in rebounding and in assists, was named to the 1st team. Sawyer Morrical, who was 17th in scoring, 10th in steals and in assists and 8th in three point shooting percentage and in blocked shots, was named to the 3rd team.”
With the season concluded, here are the season’s total stats from the Cowgirls:
TOTAL: ORB DRB RBD AST STL BLK TO FL PTS Nikki Kapka 23 36 59 24 19 13 40 28 19 Lexie Lane 35 56 91 38 74 4 105 37 317 Olyvia Olson 6 19 25 9 4 0 28 14 13 Sawyer Morrical 17 49 66 44 57 8 105 55 152 Indy Johnson 4 9 13 5 9 1 20 8 7 Kennedy Trca 18 35 53 2 16 5 41 25 58 Kaylie Dow 8 6 14 4 4 0 10 8 4 Delia Swanson 30 73 103 24 17 7 68 39 70 Summer Traub 19 40 59 22 6 14 52 31 40 Payton DeCoster 2 1 12 3 2 1 12 3 2 Kennedy Jackson 1 3 4 3 1 0 7 6 9 Elliot Ennis 43 38 81 8 8 26 34 32 81 Emma State 13 17 30 7 5 4 11 5 26
