Battle At The Birds Nest

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday our local girls basketball teams each had just one game on their schedule last week.  For the Lady Cardinals and the Lady Grizzlies that one game was a head to head match up at Soda Springs in the Birds Nest.  Any time Soda Springs and Grace face off in a sporting event the intensity gets ratcheted up a little.  Even though the two schools are not in the same conference anymore some of the old rivalry feelings come back into play.  Last week’s game fit the bill perfectly for an old rivalry game.  It was complete with cheering student sections and a very competitive game on the court.

Coming into last week’s game the Lady Cardinals were on a two game skid after losing consecutive road games to Parma and Melba.  Meanwhile the Lady Grizzlies started their season red hot by ripping off three wins over 3A schools.  So one might assume going into the head to head game that the Lady Grizzlies would be favorites to win but the Lady Cardinals were not going to go down without a fight.  What ensued was a closely contested battle that featured plenty of exciting plays as well as its fair share of early season mistakes.  By the end of the night fans had been treated to a very entertaining game that no doubt had plenty of those in attendance looking forward to their next meet up in Grace later this season.

Right out of the gates Soda Springs came out as the aggressor.  The Lady Cardinals used their speed advantage to put on a full court press that resulted in several Grace turnovers.  Grace’s head coach Kyle Christensen made some quick personnel changes and brought in freshman Cashlee Smith to help bring the ball up the floor and forced the Cardinals to pull back from the press.  Despite having to pull out of the press the Lady Cardinals leading scorer Courtnee Gronning racked up seven points as she led Soda Springs to a four point lead to end the first quarter.  The Lady Grizzlies had a noticeable size advantage under the basket with Callie Yost, Addie Rasmussen and Amanda Cooper but the Cardinal’s Rosie Harris and Maddie Kempe played tough and appeared to lead the rebounding in the early going.  Through the second quarter of play the two teams played fairly even but once again the Lady Cardinals earned a slight advantage on the scoreboard.  Going into the halftime break Soda Springs had increased their lead from four to seven points.  In the second half of play the Lady Grizzlies turned up the defensive pressure on the Lady Cardinals.  The Grizzlies seemed to put much of their focus on Gronning who had put up ten points in the first half of play while directing the Cardinals offense.  Sometimes while watching a game one can get drawn into individual match ups on the court.  In the second half of this game I began to watch the senior Gronning battle against the freshman Smith.  While Grace used several different defenders on Gronning in the second half it seemed like Smith drew the lion share of that responsibility.  I was very impressed with the determination and effort put forth by both girls.  It became very evident as the game progressed that these two young ladies were leaving it all on the court.  That being said, no game is won by just one girl on the team.  Despite the increased pressure being put on Gronning was still able to add five points to her team’s total in the second half.  Unfortunately for the Lady Cardinals Gronning’s five second half points was the bulk of their scoring in that half.  The Lady Grizzlies strategy of increased defensive pressure worked as they slowly chipped away at the Lady Cardinal’s lead in the third quarter before pulling away in the fourth quarter.  The Lady Grizzlies also did a better job of spreading the scoring around.  Senior leader Tessica Jorgensen along with Smith led the way for the Grizzlies scoring nine points each.  Both Jorgensen and Smith sparked the Grizzlies in the second half and helped propel them to the win.  Not only were the Lady Cardinals limited in scoring in the second half but they also could not get to the foul line.  The Cardinals were just two out of five on foul shots for the game while the Grizzlies went seven out of fourteen.  The Cardinals will get another shot at the Grizzlies in January when they will travel to Grace.  This week the Lady Cardinals will head to southern Utah to play in the St. George tournament while the Lady Grizzlies will be in Ririe for the Bulldog Shootout. 

Cardinals 14 13 4 3 34

Grizzlies 10 10 12 10 42

SSHS: J. Parker 2, C. Gronning 15, R. Harris 6, A. Davis 5, J. Tingey 2, E. Wood 2, T. Tingey 2

GHS: C. Smith 9, K. Mansfield 4, A. Rasmussen 6, P. Steadman 6, C. Yost 7, A. Cooper 1, T. Jorgensen 9