Streak Ends For Grace But Rebounds At Raft River

The Lady Grizzlies basketball team suffered their first loss in over a month last week when they hit the road to play their district rivals the Butte County Lady Pirates.  Just eight days prior to last week’s game the Lady Grizzlies had narrowly defeated the Lady Pirates in Grace so the Lady Grizzlies knew they were in for a battle in this game.

In the first quarter of play the Lady Grizzlies put up a modest nine points, the majority of which came from two of the team’s leading scorers, Yost and Steadman. In spite of their best efforts the Lady Grizzlies found themselves trailing at the end of the first by six points.  In the second quarter it was a different pair of girls that helped keep the Lady Grizzlies in the game.  The senior duo of Jorgensen and Stoddard tallied eight of the team’s eleven second quarter points as Grace was able to cut the lead to three at the halftime break.  After working hard to cut into the lead in the second the Lady Grizzlies saw the lead balloon back to eight points in the third quarter.  In the final quarter with the number one seed in the upcoming district tournament on the line Grace went back to work chipping away at the lead.  Three point buckets by Stoddard, Mansfield and Jorgensen helped the Lady Grizzlies come roaring back.  Sadly in the end it was not quite enough to get the Lady Grizzlies over the hump and they eventually fell by just four points.  Though there was not a lot of foul shooting in this game the Lady Grizzlies shot a dismal two for eight from the line that could have made the difference in the game.  With each team winning on their home floor in the regular season the tie breaker for the number one seed and first round bye in the district tournament came down to the margin of victory in each of those games.  Grace won the first game by three and Butte County the second game by four giving the number one seed to the Lady Pirates by just a single point.  With the third team in the district being the winless Lady Pumas from Alturas Prep barring a colossal upset it is likely that the district championship will once again come down to Grace and Butte County.

Following the sting of the loss in Arco the Lady Grizzlies next traveled to Malta to face a solid Raft River team.  The Lady Trojans entered the contest with just four losses on the season all to highly ranked teams in their respective divisions.  The Lady Grizzlies may have overlooked the Lady Trojans or perhaps still had a little hangover from the Butte County loss but at any rate Grace got off to a rough start in this game.  The Lady Grizzlies only managed six first quarter points and matched that number in personal fouls.  Of those six personal fouls Yost and Jorgensen each picked up two which limited their time on the court.  After finishing the first quarter trailing by three the Lady Grizzlies were able to bounce back in the second quarter.  Seniors Stoddard and Mansfield accounted for all twelve of the second quarter points as they went a combined six for eight from the foul line while adding three field goals.  Entering the second half with a slim two point lead the scoring for each team began to pick up.  After a less than stellar performance at the foul line in Arco the Lady Grizzlies would have to hit their foul shots to win this game.  Grace would head to the line to shoot twenty-one second half foul shots to go along with their ten from the first half.  Of those thirty-one foul shots the Lady Grizzlies converted twenty of them.  The much improved shooting from the line helped stave off the hot outside shooting of the Lady Trojans and gave the Lady Grizzlies a six point victory.

The Lady Grizzlies will stay busy in their final week of the regular season.  They will travel to West Side on Wednesday then host a very good Oakley team in their final home game of the season on Thursday.  The Lady Grizzlies will then finish the week and the season by traveling with the boys team to play a double header in Cokeville Wyoming on Saturday.

Grizzlies 9 11 9 15 44

Pirates 15 8 14 11 48

K. Stoddard 8, K. Mansfield 7, A. Rasmussen 2, P. Steadman 9, C. Yost 11, T. Jorgensen 7

Grizzlies 6 12 16 16 50

Trojans 9 7 13 15 44

K. Stoddard 11, A. King 2, K. Mansfield 11, A. Rasmussen 2, P. Steadman 4, C. Yost 12, A. Cooper 3, T. Jorgensen 4, P. Hatch 1