Lady Grizzlies Start Season With A Win

Last season the Lady Grizzlies had one of its strongest senior classes in recent memory.  That senior class capped off stellar careers by winning the state championship last February.  Grace obviously ended last season on the highest of highs but it’s a new season with almost a completely different team.  Following the graduation of five seniors you are bound to have some new faces and some minor growing pains that come with players’ first varsity experience.  The Lady Grizzlies do return some girls that saw plenty of playing time during last year’s championship run.  Namely Karlie Christensen, Tessica Jorgensen, and Kallie Stoddard.  All three girls played big roles on last year’s team with Jorgensen winning the 6th man award at the state tournament.  Christensen, Jorgensen and Stoddard are all now starters this season and were joined in the season opener by Lilly Gilbert and Evie Olenslager as the starting five Grizzlies.  Gilbert and Olenslager, both seniors, add a lot of length to go with the strength of Jorgensen and Stoddard as well as the ball handling of Christensen.

Grace opened the season at West Side taking on the Lady Pirates last Saturday.  As expected when a new group of girls are playing their first game together there was plenty of room for improvement as this game got going.  Both teams struggled early on to even get good shots off with each team throwing the ball away on errant passes.  The Pirates drew first blood scoring the first points of the game but not before nearly three and a half minutes had come off the clock.  The Grizzlies first points of the season came just twenty seconds later by way of a pair of foul shots from the aforementioned Jorgensen.  Things picked up a little at that point as Grace scored back to back buckets including a midrange jumper from Presliegh Steadman who had an immediate impact on the game off of the bench.  The quick scores by Grace forced a Pirate timeout with just over three minutes left in the first quarter.  Out of the timeout West Side did hit a big three point shot but the Grizzlies answered back with a flurry of scoring including back to back jumpers from Olenslager to end the quarter leading 14-5.

In the second quarter the Grizzlies turned up the defensive pressure and attempted to pick up the pace on offense with mixed results.  Grace was able to extend the lead but also committed several turnovers while trying to make long fast-break passes.  Fortunately for the Grizzlies they caused their fair share of turnovers earning extra possessions.  The second quarter also gave Grace fans their first look at impressive freshman Callie Yost who ended the quarter with four points and showed real hustle moving up and down the court.  When the game reached halftime the Grizzlies had built a 28-12 lead.  All seven of West Side’s points came from the charity stripe in the second quarter as the Lady Grizzlies gave up very few good looks at the basket.

In the third period of play the Lady Grizzlies were able to stay consistent on offense putting up fourteen more points.  Defensively however Grace began to commit fouls resulting in the Lady Pirates going to the line several times.  The Grizzlies were fortunate that the Pirates missed half of those shots.  Grace ended the quarter with Jorgensen and Yost each picking up their third fouls but the Lady Grizzlies remained in control.  Grace ended the quarter still leading with a score of 42-20.

The Grizzlies started the fourth quarter on an 8-0 run pushing the lead to thirty.  West Side answered back with a small run of their own outscoring the Grizzlies 11-4 over the next few minutes.  This gave the Pirates their highest scoring quarter of the game but in the end it was the Grizzlies coming out on top by the score of 54-33.

The Lady Grizzlies get the season opening win but still have plenty to work on as they move forward in the season.  Jorgensen led all scorers with eighteen points. 

E. Olenslager 4, K. Stoddard 9, K. Christensen 8, K. Mansfield 2, P. Steadman 5, C. Yost 8,
T. Jorgensen 18.

Grace 14 14 14 12 54

Westside 5 7 8 13 33