The Spartans from Grundy Center came to town last Tuesday and went home with an 83-54 victory. The Spartans have a good basketball team and we were unable to handle their man pressure and intensity in the first quarter. They out scored us 27-9 in the first eight minutes of play. After that we seemed to settle in and play much better. I thought our biggest problem was our inability to get to the traps both in the full and half court. We were just too passive defensively.

Erin Wentzien led us in scoring with 11. Nicole Adair finished with 10, Emily Snider 9, Hayley Weber 5, Amber Berendes 5, Britney Keller 4, Ellie Stoakes 4, Taylor Flamme 3, and Kyleah Dugan 3.

West Marshall

Friday night West Marshall traveled to Reinbeck. The first half was a game of streaks as neither team could get complete control of the game. West Marshall led at the end of the first quarter by 22-15 and increased their lead to 40-29 at halftime. In the first half the Rebels allowed way to many 2nd and 3rd shots. Rebounding has been an issue for us this season and was again in this half. It is something that we really need to focus on as individuals and as a team.

The second half saw the Rebels come out strong and cut the West Marshall lead to 3 points mid-way through the 3rd quarter. The Trojans we able to then extend the lead to 63-48 as the quarter came to an end. West Marshall outscored us 30-13 in the fourth to take home a 93-61 win. The Rebels for some reason could not match West Marshall’s mental and physical toughness in that fourth quarter. We have a mix of youth and experience on this team and we just have not figured out how to finish games yet. These kids work and play extremely hard, we just need to do some of the fundamental thing better. They are running our system really well and if we can improve in a few areas we will start to see some good results.

Emily Snider finished the game with 16 points. Erin Wentzien scored 14, Britney Keller 7, Taylor Flamme 7, Nicole Adair 5, Hayley Weber 5, Amber Berendes 4, and Ellie Stoakes 3.

All Rebel stats can we viewed at quickstats.com