Ladies drop season opener

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogies tipped off their season last Friday with a tough first go at the Lady Wildcats in Custer. The much smaller and much less experienced Newcastle team held their own and even led in the first half of play, but the size and veteran status of the Wildcats got the better of them at the end, as they dropped the contest 42-52. 
“We knew it was going to be a challenge, and when the big girls weren’t hitting their shots we took advantage of that,” began head coach Chad Ostenson. “Unfortunately, their bigs started to find their rhythm in the second half, and we just didn’t have the tools to shut them down.”
Ostenson’s promise to have his team play a fast-paced game was realized as the Lady Dogies ran the court the entire contest. However, that style of play is also a forte of Custer’s, so the advantage was not necessarily in Newcastle’s favor.
While it was admittedly a bit rag-tag, the Lady Dogies showed their raw potential by leading the Lady Wildcats 15-11 at the end of one and 28-25 at the end of the half. However, Custer gained and maintained the upper hand by outscoring Newcastle 21-11 in the third quarter of play as their two post players took over the game.
“That is certainly going to be where our problems will lie this season,” Ostenson admitted. “We are going to be looking at what we can do to guard teams that have big girls like that because we will see that again this season.”
The biggest disappointment for Ostenson was that
the team racked up 31 turnovers. When playing a run and gun game, turnovers are expected, however that number is a little higher than Ostenson had in mind.
“When you go fast, good things will happen, bad things will happen and a lot of times you don’t know what is going to happen,” Ostenson stated. “We went fast, however trying to get into a track meet with a team whose members were part of a state champion cross country team this fall was probably not the smartest thing. But that is the game we are going to play this year, so it was a good opportunity to try it out.”
The Lady Dogies shot the ball pretty well from the outside, however in comparison to the amount of shots put up, Custer nearly doubled up Newcastle shooting 61 to 33. The Lady Dogies were dialed in on the rim as they shot nearly 70% from the charity stripe hitting 18 of their 26 attempts.
Not only was this the first game of the season for the team, it was also the first time on the varsity floor for three of the four starters, and the first time back after a year off for one. Senior Madi Pearson sat out last season recovering from ankle surgery and Ally Cass, Jaylen Ostenson and Shelby Tidyman are just freshmen. Only Mercedes Voelker stepped on the court with any recent experience.
“The three freshmen were nervous and there were s
ome jitters to start out for sure,” Ostenson nodded. “All of them played well, however, and they did some really
good things.”
Cass ended up leading the team in scoring with 10 points, Ostenson added nine, while Voelker and Tidyman each had seven points. Seven of the eight ladies who played contributed points, so the possibility of a balanced scoring attack is another positive Coach Ostenson took from the game.
“If we can get points out of six or seven girls a night, it will make it tough for other teams to defend us,” he began. “Our leading scorer is going to change from game to game and that’s a great situation for us.”
The Lady Dogies will have three more opportunities to gain experience before opening up conference play. This Thursday, the team will travel to Sundance to take on the Lady Bulldogs in the opening game of the annual Stateline Shootout. Then Newcastle will host the Lady Broncs of Belle Fourche on Friday starting at 6:00, and the Lead Lady Golddiggers on Saturday beginning at 3:30.