The Ropes Lady Eagles basketball team hosted the Olton Fillies this past Tuesday, falling to them 70-49, and dropping to 1-1 this season.
The Lady Eagles fought hard in the game, but Olton was able to enforce their full-court press gameplan well, which gave Ropes trouble all night.
That translated in the stats as Olton won the turnover battle by forcing 39 and only having 21, which led to them outscoring the Lady Eagles 29-12 in points off turnovers.
That made the ultimate difference in what was a frustrating night for Ropes, which the Lady Eagles Head Coach Marianne Wolfe commented on.
“When we followed the game plan, we did really good things and the things we wanted to happen happened. When we decided to move away from that, things went bad,” Coach Wolfe said. “We have a lot of youth; we’re just finding our discipline within the game. It’s going to come and go this year, and we know that. There’s going to be growing pains with it, just learning to be disciplined basketball players. We’re going to get there. The girls work hard and they’re eager to learn. But tonight was definitely a tough test of that.”
Coach Wolfe couldn’t be more spot on with her postgame analysis because while her team’s youth did show in the turnover margin, their ability to execute also showed in several team statistics.
The Lady Eagles bested Olton in field goal percentage, free throws made, free throw shooting percentage, total rebounds, second chance points and charges taken.
So, while the scoreboard didn’t reflect it, they still did a lot of good things, including several great individual performances.
Freshman Zailyn Wylie was Ropes’ leading scorer with 12 points on 4/9 shooting, also going 4/5 from the free throw line and recording six rebounds.
Junior Annabelle Falls scored 11 points on 4/7 shooting, also going 3/4 from the free throw line and recording five rebounds and a steal.
Junior Karli Rhoads scored eight points on 3/5 shooting, also going 2/3 from the free throw line and recording four rebounds, an assist and a block.
Junior Macie Lehnen led the Lady Eagles with seven rebounds, adding two steals and an assist as well.
Their performances may not have led to a win, but they can certainly be confidence builders for their upcoming matchups.
Coach Wolfe was already making adjustments and laying out ways to improve in her postgame speech to the team following the loss, which she noted they’ll immediately begin to practice in hopes to implement them in their next game.
The Lady Eagles are back in action on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at home against the Klondike Lady Cougars.