Lady Warriors down Buffalo 54-30 in BHB Hoops Fest championship

COWLEY – The Lady Warriors needed a buzzer-beater to get to the championship game of the Big Horn Basin Hoops Fest in Cowley on Saturday.

Worland was bothered by a slow start once again, but once it got going it left no doubt – running away with the game against Buffalo to secure the tournament trophy with a 54-30 win over the Lady Bison.

"My biggest concern is the way we've been coming out offensively in the first quarter," Worland girls basketball coach Mark Mortimer said. "But defensively, I'm very excited for the way we played. We held down a pretty good offensive team to four points in that first quarter.

"It's kind of tough to be mad at your team when you're ahead 9-4, but still offensively that's something that we're going to have to work on."

Worland (7-0) didn't have the best start against Buffalo (7-2) as both teams had a hard time scoring in the first couple of minutes.

The Lady Warriors were getting a lot of close looks at the basket, but had a hard time getting them to go in. The defense did its job of keeping them in the game, though, and Worland led 9-4 after the first eight minutes.

"We missed a lot of easy shots. It looked like we were kind of nervous and hopefully that's something that – as the season progresses – we'll be able to get through," Mortimer said on Monday. "It's kind of the expectation right now where we might start slow, but our second and third quarters have been outstanding and have nullified the negatives from those first quarters."

Right on cue, the offense finally came alive for Worland as it outscored Buffalo 16-7 in the second quarter and took a 25-11 lead into the halftime break.

In the third quarter, the Lady Warriors were able to extend their lead some more as they outscored the Lady Bison 13-10 and led 38-21 heading into the final eight minutes.

Mortimer was able to go deeper into his rotation in the fourth quarter, getting some playing time for his reserves and they filled in nicely, besting Buffalo 16-9 in the quarter to make the final 54-30.

Carly King led Worland in scoring with 12 points while shooting 3 for 4 from 3-point range. She also added four assists and three steals.

Bryanna Mickelson had 12 points to go along with five rebounds while Lyndzi Rich finished with 11 points and eight rebounds.

Rounding out the scoring for Worland was Bailey Gibbons with six, Aubrey Goodrick and Haley Schneider with four apiece, Casey Wassum with three and Sabrina Schroefel with two.

The win also marked Worland's seventh in a row to start the season as it remains undefeated in the 2015-16 campaign – a bit of a surprise to Mortimer.

"I thought I'd be pretty happy if we were .500 heading into our conference games next week so to be 7-0 says a lot about the kids we have in the program right now," Mortimer said. "Just outstanding, athletic kids who are willing to work hard to make this program go in the right direction."

Worland only has one contest this week as it hosts Powell on Friday at 5:30 p.m. in Warrior Gymnasium.