By MARLYS GOOD
The Burlington Lady Huskies closed out the 2009 portion of the basketball season by mowing down Greybull, Riverside and Rocky Mountain, in that order, last week. The Lady Grizzlies put up the hardest fight, and forced Burlington to reach deep to pull out the win in a tough, physical man-to-man battle Saturday.
“We expected that,” Coach Jerry Patrick said. “We knew going in that they have a very good team and are very competitive.” Those qualities, plus the game being played on Rocky’s home turf, and the Lady Huskies had their hands full.
After totally dominating the first four minutes and building a 12-4 lead, the Lady Huskies slowed down, were outscored 16-6 in the second quarter and it was a battle to the end.
“It looked like we got tired,” Patrick said, our fast break wasn’t there in the second and last quarters. It’s early in the season, but we have been training harder than we have in the past; I hoped to be in better shape. But it was a good game; we made the plays we needed to at the end.”
Burlington jumped out to a big lead against the Lady Buffs and it gave Patrick the opportunity of subbing in and out, “keeping kids fresh. It was the first of our three games,” he exclaimed. “I thought we got up and down the floor well, got some fast breaks and played pretty well defensively, also.”
The Burlington Huskies ran up an 18-4 lead over Riverside in the opening quarter and never looked back in the 56-35 victory Thursday. Patrick played his entire bench and 10 of the players put points on the board led by Neves’ 21.
Riverside’s Amber Getzfreid scored 23 of Riverside’s 35 points, with 14 of those coming in the first half. “You can guess what we talked about at halftime,” Patrick laughed. “There seems to be kids who have really good games against us; we can’t allow them to have their best game against us. I liked the attitude we had going in at halftime. The kids recognized it and we did a lot better job playing defense the second half.”
With nothing but practice time until after the New Year, vacation practices will focus on shoring up the Lady Huskies — both offensively and defensively. “We found out at Rocky that we did not do a good job running our offense, setting screens, or on the boards, we lost the battle for position and rebounding a lot. Those are things that we are going to work on.”
But Burlington goes into the new year with a perfect record and will be ready to take on all comers come 2010.
BURLINGTON 60 GREYBULL 32
Burlington: 17 17 17 9 - 60
Greybull: 7 7 6 12 - 32
Burlington: Lindsey Wardell 17, Brecka Carrizales 12, Paige Neves 9, Camilla Jones 7, Alysha Henderson 5, Esmerelda Zubia 4, Jessie Flores 4, Janet Davidson 2. FG: 25-62. FT: 8-14. 3-POINTERS: 2-10 (Carrizales, Zubia). REBOUNDS: 33 (Wardell 6, Neves 6). ASSISTS: 15 (Wardell 5, Carrizales 5). STEALS: 19 (Carrizales 6). TURNOVERS: 18. FOULS: 23.
BURLINGTON 56 RIVERSIDE 35
Burlington: 18 11 14 13 - 56
Riverside: 4 12 5 14 - 35.
Burlington: Neves 21, Wardell 6, Zubia 6, Davidson 6, Flores 5, Carrizales 4, Jones 2, Henderrson 2, JEssica Stanworth 2, Sadie Neves 2. FG: 25-58. FT: 3-4. 3-POINTERS: 3-7 (Zubia 2, Flores 1). REBOUNDS: 38 (Neves 10, Henderson 6). ASSISTS: 14 (Carrizales 4). STEALS: 17 (Neves 5, Wardell 5). Turnovers 18.
BURLINGTON 48 ROCKY MTN. 45.
Burlington: 12 6 16 14 - 48
RM: 4 16 9 16 - 45
Burlington: Carrizales 17, Wardell 14, Neves 7, Zubia 4, Henderson 2, FLores 2, Jones 2. FG: 22-49. FT: 3-11. 3-POINTERS: 1-5 (Wardell). REBOUNDS: 11 (Davidson. ASSISTS: 12 (Wardell 4). STEALS: 21 (Wardell 78, Carrizales 6). TURNOVERS: 21.