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By Alex Kuhn
Sports Editor 

Lady Warriors continue offensive swing with 51-27 win over Lady Bobcats

 

February 9, 2018

DAILY NEWS/ Alex Kuhn

Lady Warrior Jaycee Page guards Lady Bobcat Haley McDermott during Worland's 51-27 win Thursday night at Worland High School.

WORLAND - The focus for the Worland Lady Warriors basketball team this week in practice and for their games was consistency. Coming off a season-high 74 points against Wheatland the Lady Warriors continued rolling as they beat the Hot Springs County High School Lady Bobcats 51-27 Thursday night at Worland High School.

Junior McKenna Butte had a double-double on the night, leading the Lady Warriors (5-9 overall, 1-3 3A East: West division] in scoring with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Saige Jones had 10 points and eight rebounds in the win and fellow senior Jaycee Page drained two 3-pointers and chipped in eight points.

Breaking the 50-point threshold in back-to-back games is a nice achievement for the Lady Warriors as they begin to put the offensive struggles that plagued them at the start of the season further behind.

"For Jaycee to hit three 3-pointers in a game and Tymberlynn [Crippen] to hit five is probably not realistic to expect but we had some girls hit some shots tonight. I thought McKenna did a real good job tonight of getting to the free-throw line, it set the tone for us tonight and got some of their girls in foul trouble, and Saige did the same thing. We wanted to be consistent and I thought defensively we were really, really good tonight," said WHS girls basketball coach Ben Hofmann.

The elevated play of Page and Butte on both ends of the floor is part of the reason why the Lady Warriors have begun to put complete games together. Butte has done it with her scoring presence inside and tenacious rebounding. And Page is knocking down outside shots and becoming one of 3A's toughest defenders.

"I think it just took us time to get into our roles. Jaycee has really been comfortable and I think her defense is fueling her offense, she's playing so well and has been a lockdown defender for us. She limited Haley McDermott, who scored 22 on us the last time out. She hit some 3s tonight, got a couple buckets and carried us for a stretch," said Hofmann.

Against Wheatland the freshman Tymberlynn Crippen came off the bench to score 15 points by going 5 of 6 from the 3-point line. Versus the Lady Bobcats (7-10, 1-3) it was sophomore guard Kate Wassum who came in and made some plays for Worland, hitting a 3-pointer and scoring seven points Thursday night.

"She is a good shooter and she needs to keep shooting. She and Tymberlynn are excellent shooters. You can't expect them to hit five out of six but if we can get them at 35-40 percent that would be great. She also came in and played outstanding defense and got a couple of steals that shut it down," said Hofmann.

The Lady Warriors cannot relish Thursday's win too much as today they have to face the Rawlins Lady Outlaws (8-8, 2-1) in another important 3A East: West division matchup.

Hofmann's message to his team for today's game was simple. "Rest up and go. You win them you can't rest on them, you lose them you can't rest on them. You have to prepare to go to work. We've prepared, we're ready and we have a good scouting report in. If we can work the scouting report I think we'll be OK. They're a quality program, we have our work cut out for us playing in Rawlins it's always a tough place to play," he said.

Lady Warriors travel to Rawlins to take on the Lady Outlaws at 5:30 p.m.; the Lady Bobcats will host No. 4 Buffalo at Hot Springs County High School, tipoff at 5:30 p.m.

 
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