Lady Jays Win One, Lose One In District Play

by PHS Journalism Students

February 21, 2010

Girls Lose Last Game to Lutheran High by Megan Gerteisen

The Pierce Varsity Girls Basketball game played Lutheran High Northeast in the second round of the sub-district tournament at Norfolk Public High School on February 16. The Lady Jays lost with a score of 31-39.

Pierce started strong, scoring 15 points in the first quarter to the Eagles’ 5. However, Lutheran High scored 13 in the following quarter, while the Lady Jays scored only 6. Still, Pierce led 21-18 at the half. The third quarter saw the Lady Jays scoring 27 to the Lady Eagles’ 29; Pierce’s lead was cut to one point. The Lady Eagles’ controlled the rest of the game, scoring another 10 points in the final quarter to Pierce’s 4 to advance the Lady Eagles to the sub-district finals game vs. Crofton.

Pierce sank three more 2-pointers than the Eagles; however, Lutheran High connected on one more 3-pointer than the Lady Jays. Pierce had a better shooting percentage than Lutheran High, 33 percent to 29 percent. When it came to free-throws, the Lady Eagles out-shot Pierce 4-15. The Lady Jays had 10 assists to the Eagle’s 5, but the Eagles had 16 steals, while Pierce had 9.

Heather Wachter led the team with 12 points. Joey Koehn followed with 9, all three-pointers, and all during the first half. The Lady Eagles adjusted to keep Koehn from outside shooting the rest of the game. Skyler Lippman made 5 points; Meghan Vogt and Rachel Wiedenfeld both had two points, and Haley Hoffman scored 1 point.

Coach Darren Sindelar said, “I thought the team competed the whole game. We came out with energy and were able to get up on them early. We played pretty good defense for the most part. We let them get some second-chance opportunities in the second half that hurt us. Also, we let them get to the free-throw line way too much. Otherwise, I think it was a very good effort by our girls. Next year, we need to continue to work on our overall basketball skills. Catching, shooting, dribbling… fundamentals in general, are very important. We lose some players with quite a bit of experience, and next year's group needs to push each other to raise the bar for next year.”

The game against the Lutheran High Northeast Eagles was the varsity girls’ last game for this season. They finished with 11 wins and 10 losses for a winning record.