Inaccurate shooting was the Hood River Valley girls varsity hoops team’s Achilles’ heel Tuesday night against Crook County High School. The Cowgirls defeated the Eagles 53-32 in Hood River.
Steve Noteboom, head coach for HRV, said this was the team’s only downfall.
“We had three objectives,” Noteboom said. “One was to limit our turnovers. Our goal was to have fewer than 16. We had 17, although we had four in the first half, we had too many turnovers in the second half. Outrebound them, and it was pretty close. They outrebounded us just a little bit. Also, I wanted us to be a little bit more patient on our offensive end and move the ball. We did pretty well on those three things, we just couldn’t shoot the ball.”
“We had three objectives,” Noteboom said. “One was to limit our turnovers. Our goal was to have fewer than 16. We had 17, although we had four in the first half, we had too many turnovers in the second half. Outrebound them, and it was pretty close. They outrebounded us just a little bit. Also, I wanted us to be a little bit more patient on our offensive end and move the ball. We did pretty well on those three things, we just couldn’t shoot the ball.”
One out of four free throws in the first quarter was made by the Eagles, while four out of 12 were made in the second quarter. This gave the Cowgirls a nearly 10-point lead at the half. Crook County juniors Teagan Freeman and Dallas Hutchins contributed to this lead with four combined buckets from downtown.
The win gave the team a confidence booster, said the head coach for Crook County, Heidi Lea.
“We worked all week on trying to have the kids do different things so that they’re staying mentally in the game,” Lea said. “We played all four quarters pretty solid. We’re used to having an elapse in at about eight minutes and that’s let teams get a jump on us. But they played a solid ball game.”
Lea also thought the Eagles guarded their posts well.
“Liz Barker had to battle and when they’re in there battling that hard against posts it makes them work hard,” Lea said. “Liz was tired. She had to post up and they had her sandwiched.”
Leading scorers for the Cowgirls were sophomores McCall Woodward and Josie Kasberger each netting 10 points and Freeman with nine.
“I thought our girls did a good job,” Lea said. “One of our Achilles has been turnovers this year. In this game my assistant told me we only had 13 turnovers. That’s great and everybody stepped up. We had some kids dressed down tonight that haven’t dressed down and they stepped in and did things. Zoe Guthrie, one of our point guards, she stepped in and had some steals on the press. They each realized they had to step up, play together and they did.”
Head coach for the Cowgirls said she liked how the team played unselfishly. The style of play involved everyone and avoided dangerous two-on-one confrontations.
Top scorers for HRV were senior Grace Meyers with 12 points and juniors Karla Barajas and Morgan Baker with five each.
HRV returned to the court Friday, Feb. 7 (results unavailable at press time). On Tuesday, Feb. 11, the team hosts Ridgeview at 6:30 p.m.
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