◆ Games with Jackson and Evanston will be key to Regional seeding.
The Lady Braves battled with a pair of tough out of town opponents over the weekend but were unable to come away with a victory as they lost to the Kelly Walsh Trojans 35-27 on Friday and then 38-32 to Rock Springs on Saturday afternoon.
Similar offensive struggles hampered the team in both contests as Star Valley was unable to get into a rhythm.
• Vs Kelly Walsh
It was a good start against the Trojans as the ladies jumped out to an early lead and a promising 11-point first quarter but things ground to a halt after that. The Lady Braves got eight points from Page Nield before she fouled out in the fourth quarter. McKenna Brog chipped in seven in the effort.
Former Riverton player, Naya Shime, put together a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Trojans.
“Against Kelly Walsh, we made enough mistakes we had a hard time getting around their length with our passing and shooting,” said head coach Kade Erickson. “That would have been a great win for us and the girls were pretty disappointed they couldn’t pull it out.”
Erickson pointed to some fundamentals of the game that the program has been working on this week that the staff hopes will pay dividends.
“[The] biggest thing is we need to improve our shooting percentage and cut down on our turnovers; those are killing us,” he said. “Even in a few of our wins we’ve done that too much. We did a lot of shooting in practice on Wednesday and we’ve done a lot of passing drills and not creating silly turnovers. Those are the biggest things. Defensively we’re still pretty strong, holding teams under 40 points.”
• Vs Rock Springs
The girls had their chances to win both contests but the margin for error was small in such low-scoring contests. Against Rock Springs, McKenna Brog did a wonderful job defensively on Tiger stand-out Brenli Jenkins until Brog was injured in the second half.
Jenkins picked up much of her stat line in the time frame without Brog on the court and helped spur the Tigers on to victory. She finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and picked up three of her five steals late in the contest.
Otessa Olsen led the Lady Braves with eight points and ten rebounds. Nield and Brog each scored seven.
“Against Rock Springs, it hurt us for Kenna to go out,” Erickson reiterated. “We had a hard time staying in front of her after that and they ended up beating us there at the end. I told the girls those are two teams we can beat but we have to play all four quarters to do it. We’ve worked on late game situations this week in practice.”
• Southwest Play
This weekend’s games are particularly important for the Lady Braves as they face off against the Jackson Lady Broncs (2-15)(1-2) on their home court on Friday night at 6 p.m. and then host the Evanston Red Devils (7-11)(0-3) on Saturday at 2 p.m. Star Valley defeated both squads earlier in the season but both were tightly contested as they fended off Jackson by six points and Evanston by four.
With first-place Green River on the horizon next weekend, the Lady Braves’ ability to find the win column this weekend will likely determine where they stand heading into the 4A West Regionals.
Coach Erickson pointed out a bit of an interesting tidbit about the Lady Braves this season.
“At home we’re 3-6 and on the road we’re 7-2 so it’s been kind of an interesting year,” he added. “As we played them last time, these are physical teams. I’ve been watching quite a bit of Jackson film. I’ve told [the team] I think this game is the most important one of the year. If we can get that game we can get that #2 seed and so we’ve been really focusing on that. The scariest thing about playing in Jackson is matching their energy and their physicality and not getting caught flat-footed in that environment. We’ve got to focus on what’s on the court and not what’s outside the lines.”
