Lady Hornets show strength in big win
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley Hit The Floor Louise's Kirsten Machicek (left) got into a wrestling match with a Lady 'Cat for this loose ball. The Lady Hornets' hustle during games serves as a team strength for the varsity girls.

The Lady Hornets have met the basketball season with a few struggles. Louise has a lack of experience with only three upper classmen on the roster, but Friday night, it never showed.

They hosted the Waelder Lady 'Cats and sent them home after claiming a 67-19 win.

Louise has faced several larger schools with deeper teams in predistrict. The Waelder match was one against a team with a short rotation and resulted in an easy win.

The Lady Hornets started the game by shutting out Waelder 22-0 in the first quarter and did not need another basket to get a win. Despite the lack of challenge, Bryan Branch, Louise's head coach, knew his team could gain some much-needed experience en route to their fifth win of the year.

"It was a chance for us to work on some things that, against the tougher 3-A teams that we've been playing, we can't," Branch said. "It gave us a chance to play against someone in a game setting to work on our zone offense, blocking out and things like that. And to be a little more successful in a game situation that we would be in practice. It's hard for us to go against our JV girls. We also go against our JV boys and that helps us a lot, but it's harder to get a game-type situation."

Branch stopped short of referring to the game as a glorified practice, but said his team paid no attention to the game's score throughout the match.

"It does some good for us," he said. "It's almost like when we lose by a bunch. We ignore the scoreboard and work on a few things here and try to get better at these things so down the road, we're better at those things."

During the game, the Lady Hornets ran into a few familiar problems they have been facing all season. Rebounding and lack of instinct have plagued Louise for most of the season. The Lady Hornets showed drastic improvement against Waelder, but still struggled with traveling calls and ball movement at times.

"(One of) our two biggest problems right now are our guards are very passive and we're thinking too much," Branch said. "I make the Playstation analogy. It's almost like, 'I have to control all five of them at one time and one of them is X and one of them is a triangle.' They have to get out of that mode where they are thinking too much instead of reacting to what the defense is.

"That comes with being young. It just takes time to develop that natural feel for the game where I catch it and I see the defense and I feel the defense."

Branch said he thinks if his team addresses their other problem, rebounding, winning will take care of itself. If not, Louise could be in trouble when district play begins Jan. 15 at Flatonia.

"It's going to end up biting us if we don't start rebounding - especially on the offensive end," he said. "I've told them 100 times, 'If you want 20 points a game, crash the boards. If you will go in and crash the boards and finish, then you will get close to 20 points a game just on offensive rebounds alone.'

"We'll hang in there and we'll do it in spurts, but we haven't been consistent with our rebounding. I truly believe that if we're going to make the playoffs, we have a chance if we rebound."

LADY HORNET STATS

Louise 67, Waelder 19

1st 2nd		3rd	4th	F
LH 22	12	14	19	- 67
Y 0	10	7	2	- 19

LHS Leaders

POINTS - Katie Brown 32, Amber Bain 16, Nicole Roades 8, Kelsi Kutac 4, Gabby Foster 2, Kirsten Machicek 2