Junior High Girls Play Basketball vs Hoxie
On Thursday, January 18th, the St. Francis junior high girls basketball teams hosted Hoxie. The Hoxie 7th grade team showed improvement from their earlier game, but were easily handled by the Hoxie squad. The eight grade game was close throughout with Hoxie taking the lead in the last few minutes of the game to win 16-21.
Coach Morrow's comments on the 7th grade game: "Hoxie was able to get a fast start and build up a sizeable lead by halftime. Their defense made it difficult for us to find open people and penetrate to the basket, which are two things we’ll be working on in practice.
Defensively, we did some good things throughout the game and occasionally made it difficult for Hoxie to score.
Generally, what these games teach us is that we have a long way to go in order to allow our kids to be successful against vastly more experienced teams, which would include most of the other teams in the league. Their kids play competitive basketball for most of the year, and their experience gives them a large advantage against kids who haven’t played much.
Clarice Neitzel provided the bulk of the scoring with her 5 points, and Laura Brunk contributed 1 point from the free throw line.
Coach Morrow's comments on the 8th grade game: "This was another close, hard-fought game in which we came up just a little short for various reasons. The first half was low-scoring and ended with a 7-7 tie. Hoxie pressured the ball very well and made it difficult for us to get into our half court offense. When we were able to get the ball down to the basket, there were some easy scoring opportunities to be had.
The second half was much like the first. We had chances to take the lead and get a little bit of separation from Hoxie, but our opportunities slipped away. Perhaps the most telling stat of the game was our performance at the free throw line, from which we scored on two out of 15 throws.
We have been very close to beating two of the best teams in the league, and we’re just a handful of shots and a few rebounds away from being 2-0, instead of 0-2. Jennna Hill led in scoring with 5 points, and Jacquelyn Ketzner and Kaitlyn Figgins scored 4 points apiece. Tilyn Bell scored 2 points and Ashlynn Lambert hit one free throw.
