The Saratoga Lady Panthers got a beating from the Cokeville Panthers Friday night, but they rallied to notch two wins Saturday against Hanna-Elk Mountain-Medicine Bow (HEM) and Encampment.
Senior Taylor Smith led the Panthers with 12 points, freshman Justine Fourman tallied 8 points and junior Shelby McGuire scored 7 points against Cokeville, but it wasn’t enough as the Panthers fell to Cokeville 39-67.
“I was very happy scoring nearly 40 points against this veteran team of six seniors in our first game of the season,” Love said. “Last year, we were struggling getting 40 points against any team. For the first game, I was very happy with our effort.”
Cokeville had a very tough defense, head coach Matt Love said in an email.
The Saratoga Panthers made some adjustments at half-time and outscored Cokeville in the third quarter, but Cokeville dominated the scoreboard the rest of the game.
Saturday, the Lady Panthers faced HEM and handily beat them 59-31.
Smith was a scoring machine racking up 21 points, including three three-pointers.
Junior Heather Oxford led Saratoga on the boards, wrangling five offensive and four defensive rebounds.
Freshman Mati Love was perfect from the field scoring 8 points including two three-pointers.
The Panthers and Miners knotted up after the first quarter at 7, but in the second quarter the Panthers exploded 23 points to HEM’s 15. The Panthers never looked back outscoring HEM 29-9 in the second half.
“HEM played really well and as usual, Coach (Janeen) Jones had them playing very hard,” Love wrote. “We started off a little slow, but then found our rhythm scoring 23 points in the second quarter.”
Smith and Love denied HEM’s passing lanes and harassed their guards to the tune of nine combined steals. Junior Taylor Miller added 7 points and junior Heather Oxford scored five points.
Both sides played a solid game first half, but the Panthers played lock down defense holding the Tigers scoreless in the third quarter. The Tigers refocused and outplayed the Panthers in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough overcome an 11-point lead.
“We got into some early foul trouble and had a tough time scoring, it almost reminded me of last year,” Love said. “It wasn’t pretty at times, but we had some good effort from our bench to pull us through.”
Freshman Mati Love led the Panthers with 8 points, 7 steals and 5 rebounds. Smith had 8 points, 4 steals and 5 rebounds.
The Panthers play their first home game Saturday against North Park at 1 p.m.
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