Stay strong all the time

The Saratoga Lady Panthers appear to be off to a good start as they put their first conference win under their belt on Thursday night. Hosting their Valley rivals, the Encampment Lady Tigers, Saratoga was able to celebrate a victory for their home opener. Despite the win, Head Coach Heather Bartlett still sees room for improvement with her team.

In addition to the win against Encampment, the Lady Panthers travelled to Kemmerer over the weekend to compete in the Fossil Classic Tournament. While there, they played the 4A Star Valley Lady Braves junior varsity (JV) team and the Rich County Lady Rebels of Utah.

Lady Panthers vs.

Lady Tigers

Throughout most of the game against the Lady Tigers, Saratoga and Encampment were close in the score. In the final minutes, the Lady Panthers were able to push ahead and secure a conference win. Bartlett, however, felt that Saratoga could have done better on the hardwood.

"We were planning on a tough game," said Bartlett, "but I thought we played really poorly, actually. It was probably one of our worst games we have played. We had been putting a ton of pressure on them to step-up and play good this game."

Bartlett added that she believed playing in front of a nearly packed gym for their first home game may have been a factor.

"I think they were just super nervous and didn't ever get comfortable and play like I've seen them play the last couple games," Bartlett said. "We're still really happy with the win but I felt like we didn't play like we wanted to play this game."

The head coach admitted that there were errors on her part as well, such as putting Savannah Wells back into the game despite Wells having four fouls. After fouling out in the 3rd quarter, the Lady Panthers had to play without her in the final eight minutes.

"There are some things in our defense we've got to improve," said Bartlett. "Whitney (Bennett) had two fouls in the first half of the 1st quarter. She's got to learn not to do that. Some of our other girls fell down on defense and let them have easy layups that they shouldn't have had. We've got to stay strong all the time."

A silver lining in the victory against Encampment for Bartlett is that the Saratoga girls pulled out a win with key players not playing portions of the game.

"Whitney scored 21 points and played half the game, so I was like, "Whitney, if you can score 21 points and play half the game, what can you do if you play a full game? So, we've just got some things to work on," Bartlett said.

The final score was 50-41.

W. Bennett scored 21 points against Encampment and had 6 rebounds and 3 steals. Senior Taylor Bennett scored 7 points and had 2 rebounds and 2 assists, junior Tasia Daley scored 7 points and had 6 rebounds and 4 steals. Wells scored 5 points and Shelby Knotwell scored 5 points.

Lady Panthers vs.

Lady Braves

"Star Valley JV was a good game and the score was fairly close the entire game," said Bartlett. "It was a good competitive game for us."

W. Bennett led the Lady Panthers against Star Valley with 16 points, 7 rebounds and 6 steals. Wells followed with 9 points, 1 rebound and 2 steals and Daley scored 5 points and had 3 rebounds and 3 steals.

The final score was 29-40.

Lady Panthers vs.

Lady Rebels

While Saratoga was able to keep the score close with the 4A Lady Braves, that wasn't the case with the Lady Rebels. 

"Rich County is an exceptional team and we struggled to keep things close," Bartlett said, "but I feel those games you always come away mentally tougher than before, so it was still a good experience."

Wells took the lead against Rich County with 15 points and 2 steals. T. Bennett scored 8 points and had 2 rebounds, Daley scored 2 points and had 7 rebounds and Kylee Conseen scored 4 points.

Following this weekend, the Saratoga Lady Panthers are 4-6 for the season and 1-0 in conference play.

This week, the Lady Panthers head down south as they are hosted by the North Park Lady Wildcats. Tip-off begins at 4 p.m. on January 17 in Walden, Colorado.