Girls drop Rangers, fall to Bison

Jason Ferguson

Published: Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Breezy Boldon drives to the hoop during last Thursday night’s game against Hill City. The freshman guard has provided quite a boost off the bench for the Wildcats, and chipped in three points and some timely rebounds and steals in the win over the visit

        For a while, it looked like there might not be enough players to finish the game. In last Thursday night’s 44-36 win over Hill City, Custer and Hill City players were being called for fouls at an extraordinary pace, putting both teams into the bonus by early in the second period and basically grinding the game to a halt for the better part of six minutes. The foul-a-thon saw virtually every player on the floor shooting free throws, as they took turns walking up and down the floor to take their turn at the line. “We talked at halftime about some poor choices we made,” head coach Paul Anderson said. “It’s no fault of the referees. We have to adjust to the way the game is being called. We had some fouls that were just plain stupid. We got that corrected in the second half.” The second half proved to see much less fouling—or at any rate, much less fouling called—and the Wildcats played much stiffer defense while using an 11-4 fourth quarter run to pull away for the win. Free throws actually proved to be the defense in the game, as the Wildcats managed to get to the line 33 times, making 18 of them. In the last 1:01 of the game, Custer went to the line six times—making five—to seal the victory. Melissa Flores, who led the team with 11 points, went seven of 10 from the line and made the two clinching free throws with eight seconds left in the game. The game proved to pit two evenly matched teams against each other, as Custer took an early 6-3 lead via back-to-back three pointers by Taava Cooper. All but one of Custer’s 13 first quarter points were three-pointers, as the taller Hill City team did a good job initally of taking away the Wildcat post players. Hill City took the lead early in the second quarter, with the help of a Mariah Asheim drive and jumper, but Custer tied the game again a short time later, thanks to two more Flores free throws. Cooper than buried another three to give Custer the lead again briefly, only to see Hill City tie the game at 23-23 at the half. The second half proved to be much less frenetic, with Hill City controling much of the action before Shawna Gibson and Ariel Cisneros both hit free throws to allow Custer to retake the lead in the see-saw game. Custer went up four in the fourth quarter on another Cooper three-pointer, and had the lead up to six before Hill City’s Stephanie Qualm hit a tough basket in traffic to cut the lead to 39-36 with 2:02 left in the game. From there, Custer ran the clock and forced Hill City to begin fouling. “We didn’t play well in the first half. Our shot selection was poor,” Anderson said. “In the second half we took control of the basketball game on the offensive end. We ran our offense, made them play defense, and our shot selection improved tremendously.” Friday the team traveled to Hot Springs, where it lost to the host Bison 40-34. As it has much of the season, bad shooting hurt the Wildcats, as after Cooper put Custer on top 6-0 to start the game the ’Cats had a terrible time making baskets, eventually shooting only 22 percent in the game. “We have been hovering around that 20 percent mark this entire season,” Anderson said. “Some of it is shot selection. We hope we can shoot better than that.” Defensively Anderson said the team allowed Bison point guard Randi Weiss too much penentration, either creating scoring chances for herself or dishing the ball to a teammate for an easy basket. “At critical times they got in the lane on us and broke us down,” Anderson said. “It ended up being the difference. When you don’t shoot well, you have to do a lot of things well to keep yourself in the game.” After Hot Springs started to pull away in the third quarter, Custer mounted a comeback in the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to three. However, some critical offensive rebounds by the Bison on missed free throws proved to be the backbreaker for the ’Cats. “We came out with very little energy and enthusiasm,” Anderson said. “We need some people to step up and provide that for us, even when things aren’t going well.” The team will get a tall test this weekend, as it travels to St. Thomas More Thursday night before traveling to Pine Ridge Friday night. Both teams are among the top ranked teams in Class A. “We’re in the time of year we just have to look for improvement,” Anderson said. “We will focus on those things during the course of the week, and we will look for that improvement so  we get better as a team.” Custer 13 12 8 11 —44 HC 13 12 7 4 —36 Custer—Ariel Cisneros 1 3-5 6, Shawna Gibson 1 3-6 5, Breezy Boldon 0 3-4 3, Melissa Flores 2 7-10 11, Taava Cooper 4 2-7 14, Megan Harkin 1 0-1 2, Haley Davenport 1 0-0 3. Totals: 10 18-33 44. Hill City—Stephanie Qualm 4 1-3 9, Mariah Asheim 4 0-0 9, Mackenzie Swanson 0 1-2 1, Jessica McDonald 0 2-2 2, Kelby Wiederhold 2 2-2 6, Patricia Romero 1 1-2 3, Alise Kelting 1 2-8 4, Amanda Straw 1 0-1 2. Totals: 13 9-19 36. Three-pointers—Custer 6 (Cooper 4, Cisneros 1, Davenport 1), HC 1 (Asheim). FG percentages: Custer 20 (10-49), HC 30 (13-44). Rebounds: Custer 33, HC 27. Turnovers: Custer 14, HC 18. Total fouls: Custer 20, HC 22. Fouled out: none. Custer 6 4 14 10 —34 HS 4 7 15 12 —40 Custer—Ariel Cisneros 0 1-2 1, Shawn Gibson 5 3-4 13, Breezy Boldon 1 0-0 3, Melissa Flores 1 3-5 5, Taava Cooper 3 4-6 13. Totals: 10 11-17 34. Hot Springs—Randi Weiss 5 4-7 15, Amy Tierney 1 1-1 2, Rikki Powell 3 0-0 8, Sandra McPherson 2 2-2 7, Sarah Geiser 2 1-2 5, Angelica Cachro 1 0-0 2. Totals: 14 8-12 40. Three-point goals: Custer 4 (Cooper 3, Boldon), HS 4 (Powell 2, Weiss, McPherson) Rebounds: Custer 33, HS 20. Total fouls: Custer 17, HS 18. Fouled out: Cisneros, Geiser.