Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Lady Warrior Saige Jones puts up a shot before the Wheatland defense has a chance to contest Saturday afternoon at Worland High School. Worland won 80-41.
WORLAND - A night after being out of sync on offense the No. 3 Worland Lady Warriors put on their best offensive display of the season to go with another suffocating defensive performance.
"I thought we executed well on offense. We had good ball movement and we took advantage of matchup advantages and I was really proud of the girls defensively," said WHS girls basketball coach Ben Hofmann.
The Lady Warriors (10-3 overall, 3-0 3A East: West Conference) were relentless on defense and offensively in rhythm as they dominated the Wheatland Lady Bulldogs (9-6 overall, 2-2 3A East: East Conference) 80-41 Saturday afternoon at Worland High School.
Wheatland had no answer for Worland's high-low offense as Worland's bigs, Lyndzi Rich, Charlee Townsend and Saige Jones passed efficiently and effectively all game long.
Worland's top three scoring options of Rich (27 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks), Townsend (18 points, 13 rebounds and four assists) and Bailey Gibbons (16 points, 3 steals and three assists) scored 61 of the team's 80 points. Mackenzie Cottrell led the team with six assists and zero turnovers.
"Our bigs passed the ball really well; Charlee, Lyndzi and Saige do a really good job of feeding each other. It's something we work on in practice because we know most nights we're going to have the advantage down low. If we can feed the basketball at the right time we're going to have one-on-one matchups that favor us," said coach Hofmann.
As a team, the Lady Warriors assisted in 21 of the team's 30 made field goals and continued to improve their free-throw shooting percentage going 69 percent from the charity stripe on 11 of 16 shooting.
On the defensive end, Worland held Wheatland, who is the second best scoring team in the state, to 14 points below their season average of 55.3 points per game.
"That's a good offensive team," said coach Hofmann about Wheatland, "They're the second best scoring team in the state and we held them 14 points below their season average. Holding any team that far below their season average means most nights you're going to be successful."
The Lady Warriors have extended their winning streak to seven straight games but coach Hofmann wants his team to stay hungry and not become content with their play.
"I told the girls in the locker room we can't rest on what we've done so far because every team makes the playoffs. Aside from seeding, what we've done doesn't matter in terms that every team is in. So it comes down to whoever is hot during that time will be the team carrying the trophy and we want to be that team. So we just need to keep building and getting better each week in practice and not resting on what we've done so far," said coach Hofmann.
This week Worland resumes their conference schedule with games at Thermopolis on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and Friday they host Rawlins High School which is also a "Pink Out" game at 5:30 p.m.
"I'm being picky but we had lapses in rebounding the basketball (Saturday). We need to shore that up and make that a point of emphasis," said coach Hofmann when talking about his team's focus for this week. "We're playing well defensively. This team is built on defense, we're long and athletic and use that to our advantage. The offense will take care of itself, I don't know that we'll get to 80 every night, but our offense will score us enough points as long as we take care of business on the defensive end."
