Ladies heading to state tourney

The Lady Dogies busted out of the chute last Thursday at the 3A East Tournament in Burns, and though they were hobbled in the semi-finals — falling to a very physical Lady Bison team — they rallied to stampede the Trailblazers in the final game to take third place and set themselves up nicely for the state tournament this weekend. 
On the road to their third-place finish, Newcastle defeated Rawlins 52-23, lost to Buffalo 41-56, beat Thermopolis 44-20 and finally got the better of Torrington 45-34.
“We struggled a little offensively, but we’ve said it before that defense travels where offense doesn’t always,” head coach Chad Ostenson began. “While our offense didn’t travel as well as we’d have liked, our defense definitely did. It was physical and it was hard, but it was a good tournament for us. We came out of it sore, but healthy, and the kids did what it took to get us where we want to be.” 
In the opening contest against the fourth-seeded Rawlins Lady Outlaws, Newcastle controlled the game from the start. It wouldn’t be until 2:57 in the first quarter before the Lady Outlaws scored, hitting one of two free-throws, and the Lady Dogies finished the first frame with a 15-1 lead.
“They came out with a triangle-and-two defense, face-guarding Jaylen [Ostenson] and Mack [MacKenzie Conzelman], and it took a couple of trips to figure it out and let Shelby [Tidyman] take over,” Ostenson explained. “She’s very capable of that, and she stepped seamlessly into that role.” 
In the second quarter, Newcastle out-scored the Outlaws 16-6 to go into the half 31-7. In the first half, fans saw some great assists as Lady Dogie players drove to the hoop and hit Tiernan Stanton on the backside for wide open looks.
In the second half, Newcastle struggled a little with their usually pretty consistent shooting from the outside. Tidyman did get hot and ended the game hitting 4 of 7 from beyond the arc. Conzelman finished shooting two for 5, but those were the only two to dial in from three, and as a team, they shot 6 of 18. 
The third quarter was a little slow on the offensive end of the court as Newcastle only scored 8 and Rawlins put in 6. 
Tidyman started the fourth with a 3 and then a quick 2 to get things going and the ball started to fall again. Starters didn’t play much of the fourth quarter as the bench came in to finish off the Lady Outlaws 52-23.
Tidyman and Stanton both picked up the scoring responsibilities for the Lady Dogies finishing with 22 and 10 points respectively. Conzelman finished with 8, Hunter McFarland 6, and Jayde Harrington chipped in 2. Ostenson only had 4 points at the end of the contest, however she had six assists and six steals so she just adjusted her role to help her team score in other ways. 
“I’m not sure how many other teams have a situation like ours,” Ostenson said, smiling. “The kid who scores 20 a night is okay with scoring 4. It doesn’t matter who gets the points as long as the team gets the ‘W.’”  
The semi-final match-up against the Buffalo Lady Bison on Friday was a game which promised to be a challenging one for the Lady Dogies, and it did not fall short of expectations. Newcastle had defeated Buffalo twice during the regular season, the last time just last week and only due to a come-from-behind run by the Lady Dogies to go up 1 at the end of the game.
The Lady Bison defense is solid and as Jaylen Ostenson admitted, is the toughest the team has played against all season, so everyone knew it would be a battle.
“We knew it would be very physical and that they are athletic and play great defense,” Coach Ostenson began. “They also have some depth with two or three pretty good posts, some guards and some younger kids who are also starting to come in and contribute.” 
The Bison utilized their very physical defense to close out the first quarter with a 21-8 lead over Newcastle, then the Lady Dogies were able to chip a little off that deficit to go into the locker room down 19-29. 
“We guarded their posts like we wanted to and we hung close to them in rebounding,” Ostenson said. “But, we struggled again to shoot because they made it tough for us to do so.”
Buffalo won the third quarter, out-scoring Newcastle 12-6 while the Lady Dogies finally got into an offensive rhythm to win the fourth 16-15. Unfortunately, it was too little to overcome the Lady Bison lead which meant they would have to rebound in the loser out game early on Saturday morning. 
Once again, Tidyman led the team with 20 points, Ostenson was next with 8, Stanton scored 6, McFarland 5 and Conzelman finished with 2 points.
According to Coach Ostenson, his players understood that they still had a job to do and focused on the next game on the queue, which was the 9 o-clock loser-out contest against Thermopolis on Saturday morning. 
“This was also a very physical game,” Ostenson reported. “That team, from the first game we played them to now, has improved. We knew we needed to come out and take care of business right away.”
Though a blistering start was not what the fans experienced, Newcastle ended the first quarter up 8-4, then ramped things up to go into the half with a 20-8 lead. 
“We were aggressive on defense and mixed things up,” Ostenson explained. “We know that the longer you let some of those teams hang around, the scarier they become.”
The final two quarters had Newcastle firmly in control as they out-scored the Lady Bobcats 24-12 to take the 44-20 win, thus punching their ticket to the state tournament.  
“The end of that game was pretty special,” Ostenson said. “That’s three straight years of qualifying for the state tournament with this crew, which is awesome.”
Ostenson finished this one with a double-double scoring 17 points and pulling down 14 rebounds. Tidyman tied Ostenson, also putting in 17 points, Conzelman added 7, Stanton 2 and Hailey Beastrom rounded out scoring with 1 point. 
After securing one more week of their season, the only thing left was to decide seeding for the state tournament. Torrington’s win over Burns earlier in the day pitted them against Newcastle in the fight for third place. 
The two teams had played each other once in January where the Lady Dogies came away with a 9-point win though the Lady Trailblazers were playing without one of their starters and both teams had to play the waiting game between their morning win and their 6 o’clock evening contest. 
“It was good to play them again and with their full roster this time,” Ostenson said. “With the weather and the interstate the way they were we had to stay in Burns, but the kids did a good job of entertaining themselves for about eight hours. It was nice, though, to have that time to rest because it’s tough to have only a one-game break between contests.”
When the time came for tip-off, both teams started a little slow but Newcastle ramped things up about four minutes into the contest to finish the first quarter up, 15-5.
“It took the first few minutes to get going, but from mid-way through the first quarter to mid-way through the third quarter we played some really good basketball,” Ostenson said. “We moved the ball well and gave up a good shot for a great shot, and we finally were able to get into an offensive rhythm.”
Torrington was able to get within 9 points by half-time, but Newcastle extended their lead in the third quarter to 35-19. The Lady ‘Blazers made a run in the final frame of play and out-scored the Lady Dogies 13-10, but it was too little too late as Newcastle cruised to a 45-34 win.
Ostenson led her team with 15 points, Tidyman was next with 11, Conzelman added 9, McFarland 8 and Stanton 2 points.
“We had three pretty physical games, but it was good to see the kids have the mental toughness to play through it and finished on a high note with some pretty good basketball,” Ostenson said. “Now we focus on state, and looking at how the bracket shook out I really like where we’re at. But, the best eight teams in the state are going to be there so there’s nothing easy about this weekend.”
As the No. 3 seed from the East, Newcastle will face off against the second seeded Lander Lady Tigers from the West at 9 on Thursday morning at the Wyoming Ford Center.