Boards and bunnies blamed

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
Basketball is a numbers game. The number of shots taken, rebounds brought down, steals, assists, blocks, fouls, turnovers and, of course, points all impact the outcome of the contest. For the Lady Dogies, 57 and 31 were the numbers last weekend, which put the nail in the coffin for the team.
On Friday night, the Torrington Lady Blazers pulled down 57 rebounds (31 of those on offense) to Newcastle’s 34, and on Saturday Gering also nabbed 57 rebounds (31 on offense) while the Lady Dogies only had 22.
“If we cut down the number of rebounds they got, and hit some of the bunnies we should have, we would have been right there in the Torrington game,” head coach Chad Ostenson sighed. “Unfortunately, we just let them shoot until they made it, and it’s tough to win games that way.”
Despite the rebounding woes, Newcastle was able to keep themselves within range during the first half of the contest.
Torrington did jump out to a 10-4 lead at the end of the first quarter, but then the Lady Dogies went toe-to-toe with the Blazers in the second frame, scoring 16 points to their 18. As such, they went into the locker room at the half time break with only an eight-point deficit.
Newcastle kept it close again in the third quarter, only being outscored by three, however Torrington was able seal the victory with a strong final frame to take the 55-38 win.
“I was really happy with everything we did against Torrington except rebounding and the fact that we missed some bunnies,” Ostenson nodded. “The girls followed our game plan of limiting their bigs from scoring, and we are starting to see pieces of our game come together so that’s good as we move forward.”
The Lady Dogies ran up against a buzz saw as they hosted the Gering Lady Bulldogs on Saturday.
The Nebraska team not only outsized Newcastle, but their athleticism and experience
was also evident as they dominated the home team throughout the contest.
“They are a good, senior-heavy team and it was easy to see they have played together for a long time,” Ostenson sighed. “They are also a crew who just get the game of basketball.”
Like the night prior, the Lady Dogies struggled on the boards giving the Lady Bulldogs far too many opportunities to score, which ultimately led to Gering running away with the 55-15 win.
“We talked about it at half time when we were down 8-31 and we were up front about the situation,” Ostenson admitted. “We didn’t care about the score at that point, we just wanted to use the rest of the game to get better for what we have coming up, and I think they made us better.”
Getting better is what the Lady Dogies are working toward, and they will have two more opportunities this weekend with an overnight road trip taking on Burns on Friday followed by Rawlins on Saturday.