Gut check for girls

The Lady Panthers had three games scheduled last week like the boys. The Lady Panthers took on the North Park Lady Wildcats Tuesday, traveled to Hanna for a Friday match against the Hanna-Elk Mountain (HEM) Lady Miners, then concluded the week with an away conference game against the Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Rattlers.

Adjustment spurs win

The Lady Panthers played zone defense for the first half of Tuesdays contest versus the North Park Wildcats-the result: an 18-23 deficit.

Coach Heather Bartlett changed strategy at the half and elected to go with man-to-man coverage.

Though the Wildcats started the third with a 3-pointer to go up 18-26, the Lady Panthers began a comeback that would see the game seesaw into the fourth quarter when the Lady Panthers would finally take control for a 44-40 win.

The change in defense keyed the second half comeback as the Lady Panthers tallied 9 team steals amid a flurry of balls that were knocked away from the Wildcat offense.

"We didn't have a very good first half," Bartlett said, "we had a lot of turnovers and they did shoot well."

At the halftime break Williams changed the scheme. "I had been in a zone for a little while so we pulled out of our zone and went to man and really concentrated on lowering our number of turnovers." Bartlett said. "(The girls) did much better in the man-to-man defense and that kind of shut down their primary scorers."

Bartlett said she contributed a lot of the win to, "Just going out and really concentrating on not turning the ball over."

The coach said Alicia Zaragoza (10 points) and Aubrey Berger (7 points, 2 steals) stepped up to help the team win the game and added that Meredith Lincoln had her usual good game (15 points, 5 assists and 4 steals) while sparking the defense.

Saratoga vs. H.E.M.

The Saratoga girl's team played HEM Friday to a 64-57 win in Hanna. Because of an illness in coach Bartlett's family, other information was not available.

A loss at LSRV

The Lady Panthers traveled to Bags Saturday to meet Little Snake River. That game was a 54-42 loss to their conference rival. Because of an illness in coach Bartlett's family, other information was not available.

Kaycee, Encampment on tap

The Lady Panthers will travel to play in Kaycee against the Lady Bucs with games beginning at noon on Friday, Feb. 17. The Lady Panthers will finish the regular season against the Lady Tigers the next day with games starting at 5 p.m. in the Panther Den.