Ladies end preseason schedule 1-3

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The learning curve for the 2019-2020 Lady Dogies is huge given their youth and inexperience, and the squad is taking full advantage of preseason contests to get up to speed before tipping off conference play in January. 
The team emerged from the annual Stateline Shootout tournament with a 1-2 record, which left them with a 1-3 record overall heading into the Christmas break. 
The first win of the season came on Thursday, Dec. 19, as the Lady Dogies travelled to Sundance to take on the Lady Bulldogs. Head coach Chad Ostenson admitted it wasn’t the prettiest of ball games, but when the final buzzer sounded, his team had claimed the 40-29 victory.
“We started out really well, but then things got out of rhythm and it took until the third quarter to get back on track,” he admitted. “We had a fairly convincing lead the whole way though, and that allowed us to get a bunch of kids into the game to get them some minutes.”
Mercedes Voelker started the contest hitting her first two three-point attempts, which is usually a good sign for the Dogies. However, she ended up getting in foul trouble and had to spend more time on the bench than Ostenson would have liked. 
“Mercedes has started out hot in the first three games of the season which gets people going. If we can get started like that, good things happen,” Ostenson chuckled. “Also, our first W came a month before it did last year, so getting that win was sweet.”
Ostenson also felt better about the turnovers his team committed in
comparison to their first game of the year against Custer. Against the Wildcats, the ladies handed it over 31 times, but were able to cut that number to 21 against Sundance. Another stat that the Lady Dogies have focused on this season is rebounding, with their goal to bring down more boards than their opponents. Sundance got the edge on that however, as they grabbed eight more than Newcastle.
On Friday the 20th, the tournament moved to Newcastle for the duration and the Lady Dogies took on the Belle Fourche Lady Broncs. 
“I thought that was probably the best game we played all week,” Ostenson nodded. “We took care of the ball, we did good things and it was a great game for our young kids and everyone to be in.”
The Broncs had a couple of big girls on the inside which is a weapon the Lady Dogies have a tough time fighting given their lack of height. In the first half, Newcastle was able keep the inside players from hurting them, but in the second half, the two found their groove and made it tough.
“This was an every possession game, and pretty much none of our girls have been in a game where each time they touched the ball mattered,” Ostenson began. “We went into the half up by three, but when we came out they started really utilizing their big kids and that is obviously something we are going to have to figure out.”
The game was a battle throughout the final two quarters of play, but Belle was able to pull ahead in the final minutes of the contest to take the 41-31 win over Newcastle.
Ostenson was pleased with the way his team handled the full court pressure the Lady Broncs threw at them, and felt as though his ladies’ shooting percentage was decent as well. 
“The only disappointment for me was that our scoring only came out of a couple of kids. We need to get more kids in the scoring column,” he nodded “We were right with them in rebounds, and even though they did get us by five, we’re getting close to winning that aspect of the game.”
The final game against the Lead Lady Golddiggers was a heartbreaker with the Lady Dogies having the W taken away at the end of the contest as the Diggers pulled out the victory by a mere four points, 37-33. 
Unfortunately, Newcastle was slow to start and finished the first quarter down 4-12. In addition, the team shot a respectable 70% from the charity stripe in the first half, but that dropped to less than 30% in the second half of the ball game.
“I’m sure we were tired, but they were too because it was their third game of the weekend,” Ostenson stated. “That was the one I was most disappointed in, because we seemed to be half a step slow and couldn’t get anything done. We shot less than 50% from the free throw line and ended up 8/20 on the night so even 60% would have made it a different story.”
Jaylen Ostenson was the Lady Dogies’ leading scorer of the tournament scoring 15, 17 and 13 points in the games respectively. Ally Cass finished with 22 points from the three contests, and she was followed by Voelker who scored 16.
The Lady Dogies have a three week hiatus where Ostenson is hoping to work on fine tuning his team’s offensive and defensive sets so that when they come back after the break to open up Conference play against the Lady Blazers of Torrington on Friday, Jan. 10, they will be up to speed. Torrington comes to town for that matchup, and the ladies will travel to Gering on Saturday, Jan. 11, for their second contest of the week.