Tiger Girls Go the Distance but Fall to Stanberry

Worth County's girls went the distance against Stanberry after having lost four straight games by running clock margins but still lost 45-23 in Grand River Conference action Tuesday night. The focus of the game was to contain Stanberry's two six-footers; while they shut down Kelsey Stuart, they were not able to shut down Kaitlyn Mercer, who went off for 23 points against Worth County. Offensively, Worth County got production from three different sources as Liz Novak led with 10, Kiley Reynolds added 5, and Brooke Gilland added five. But leading scorer Lauren Null did not score a single point for the Tigers as they could not figure out a way to get her going. Should they find a way to get both her as well as the rest of the supporting cast going, they could start seeing their offensive totals go up into the 30's. Worth County only had 12 rebounds for the game against the much taller Stanberry squad; they were able to force more turnovers than Stanberry did, but it was not enough to make a difference.

Mercer scored a couple of inside shots for Stanberry and the Bulldogs were able to rebound at will against Worth County, getting 5 offensive boards in the first 2:30 of the game as Mercer scored twice from inside to make it 4-0. Brooke Gilland threw it to Liz Novak on the right side to make it 4-2 as Worth County finally broke the scoring drought with 1:47 left, but Shannon Luke's putback made it 6-2 after one quarter. Worth County was doing a good job out of their sagging zone stopping the lob passes to Mercer and Stuart, but they were not getting the boards.

Lauren Null hit Kiley Reynolds from the right side off an inbounds play for a 3-pointer; Brooke Gilland hit a free throw off a steal to keep it at 10-6. But then Allison Luke hit two 3-pointers from the left baseline which forced Worth County out of their sagging zone after the half as Stanberry went on to lead 19-8 at the break.

Worth County went to a man to man, which cut down on the offensive boards by Stanberry, but they could not get Lauren Null going offensively and they were not able to draw contact and get on the line as they only went to the line six times during the game. The man to man defense worked for a while as Mercer's bucket from the high post was the only score for Stanberry for the first 3+ minutes. But then the bottom caved in as Laura Runde scored from inside, Allison Luke hit a free throw, and then Mercer rebounded a miss to make it 26-8.

Worth County, which shot 17% for the night, finally got some shots to drop as Brooke Gilland hit from the right side, Kiley Reynolds hit a pullup from the right wing, and Brooke Gilland found Liz Novak on the right side for a 3-pointer to keep it at 30-15. But Robyn Gard scored on a steal and drive with six seconds left to make it 33-15 and Mercer got loose at will inside as Stanberry pushed the lead up to 39-18. Brooke Gilland hit a pair of free throws and then Liz Novak added a putback, but then Stanberry exploited a mismatch as Novak somehow got matched up on the much taller Stuart for an easy basket and then Stuart hit a pair of free throws to prompt Worth County to throw in the towel at the 1:29 mark. Kaylee Sherer hit a free throw after Rebecca Moore pushed it up the floor to her for the reserves.