Finding A Way To Finish

Joshua Clark photos
Adelaide Williams drives the ball down the court while taking on Shoshoni in Wright over the weekend. 

By: 
Joshua Clark joshua@glenrockind.com

All season long coach Chris Gray has been preaching to his team to play all 32 minutes of the game if they want to see success on the hardwood.
It’s something the Lady Herders have struggled with, oftentimes keeping games close or winning the first half just to not maintain that quality of play in the third and fourth quarters.
Glenrock got a little bit closer to that goal Saturday when they defeated the Shoshoni Lady Wranglers in Wright 47-41.
The Lady Herders got out to an early lead and maintained it almost the rest of the way through. Shoshoni grabbed the lead for a short time in the third quarter, but Glenrock quickly got the lead back and built an 11-point lead late into the fourth.
Then everything fell apart.
“That’s what happens when you have freshman and sophomores out there,” Gray said. “They’re not used to being in those types of positions. We need to continue to go into the fourth quarter with a lead and have similar situations and we will get better at them.”
With two starters already on the bench due to foul trouble, Adelaide Williams got called for a fourth personal foul on a screen the refs called a block. In frustration she dribbled the ball hard on the court, and the refs called her for a technical and she fouled out.
With their primary ball-handler on the court now suddenly out of the mix, Glenrock’s offense fell apart.
“Shoshoni started pressing and we started throwing the ball around and being sloppy not handling the pressure well,” Williams said. “Handling pressure has been something we have struggled with since day one, so they were able to get some easy steals and easy baskets off of it.”
The three starters fouling out was just a culmination of what was a very frustrating dynamic between Glenrock and the referees all game.
Toward the end of the first quarter, supporters of the team noticed that the scoreboard was wrong. The Lady Herders just hit a shot that should’ve brought the game to 13-9. Fans on the sideline yelled this out, to which a ref responded “If you guys don’t quit I will turn the scoreboard off,” and set the score to 11-10.
The Lady Herders didn’t let that frazzle them though and continued to play their game and have success.
“We knew Shoshoni was a beatable team if we played together and executed,” Williams said. “Our shots fell and we did a good job on the defensive end.”
Gray was proud of the way his team kept their composure and maintained their quality of play.
“We came out better in the third quarter than we have recently,” Gray said. “It was probably the best third quarter we’ve played all season. They came out and played like they’re capable of playing. That’s what we’ve been asking from them all week, we told them you’re playing a good first half you need to start bringing that into the second half, and they did that outside of the last two minutes.”
Williams led the way offensively scoring 19 points, which ties her season-high from back on December 20.
She was the main ball-handler most of the game initiating the offense and dishing out three assists, second on the team to Abbi Cerny who finished with four.
The team will host Lusk 5 p.m. Friday, and the team’s main focus will once again be playing quality basketball all 32 minutes of the game. In order to do that they will need to play defense without fouling and make sure they have their best players on the court late in the game, and preferably win the game without stressing out their coach in the process.
“They’re coming along and getting better,” Gray said. “But they definitely don’t like making it easy on this old coach.”

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