Ladies hoopsters start strong

The Lady Dogie hoopsters had another strong start as they hosted the No. 4-ranked Wheatland Lady Bulldogs Saturday. Despite showing improved defensive play throughout the contest, head coach Mike Pederson’s crew couldn’t maintain the lead they held throughout most of the first half, falling to the Lady Bulldogs 36-53.

“I couldn’t be happier with the way we started,” Pederson said. “We came out strong and we played well, it was just the last couple of minutes in the second quarter where things kind of got away from us.”

The Lady Dogies led 10-8 at the end of the first frame of play and continued to lead into the second quarter, but as the first half wound down, Wheatland standout player Lily Anderson, who averages 26 ppg, went to work to give her team the 23-18 advantage heading into the locker room.

“We kind of relaxed a few times against their full-court pressure, and it got the best of us,” Pederson said. “Then, we didn’t have the best start to the third quarter either.”

Wheatland kept pouring it on in the second half, draining 18 points to Newcastle’s 10 in the third quarter, and out-scoring them 12-8 in the fourth.

Though the final score may not have been an indication, Lady Dogie transition and help defense was much improved from previous performances. Pederson, and sophomore forward Kyndal Von Eye both agreed that the defense was improved, and both felt that the team handled the full-court pressure better than they have in the past as well.

“I feel like our defense was better than it has been. We still have work to do, but you could see that it was better,” Von Eye said. “I also feel like we did better against pressure, at least in the first half. It didn’t scare us as much as it usually does.”

Pederson echoed Von Eye’s analysis.

“We spent a lot of time last week working on our transition and help defense, and it showed. At times it comes down to us being physical. We are still kind of timid, and we don’t like to go make contact and that gave them a lot of easy looks inside, which I wasn’t super happy about,” Pederson said.

Adalyn Olson had a standout game, leading the way for Newcastle with 20 points and 10 rebounds and picked up her first double-double of the season. Syd Pederson was close to doing the same with nine points and nine rebounds.

“Again, I thought this was one of our better games,” Pederson said. “We are seeing improvement each week, and when everything comes together, we are going to be hard to beat.”

The Lady Dogies have two more conference games this week as they travel to Burns to take on the Lady Broncs on Friday, then will host Douglas on Saturday for a rematch against the No. 2-ranked Lady Bearcats. Tip off for varsity games are scheduled for 4 p.m. on Friday and 3:30 on Saturday with JV playing at 1 p.m. on Saturday.So