Lady Buffs win once at opening tourney

By Marlys Good

An “okay weekend” were the words used by Coach Jeff Hunt to describe his team’s performance at the Coal Miner’s Classic in Wright and the Herder Classic in Glenrock last weekend.
The Lady Buffs went 1-3, losing to Wright 44-25 and outplaying Kaycee 61-24 in Friday’s games played in Wright; in Glenrock Saturday, the Buffs lost to host Glenrock 55-41 and Niobrara County (Lusk) 77-38.
“We definitely need to do a better job on defense early in games,” Hunt said. “We gave up too many points in the first half and it made us have to play from behind in three of the four games.”
The exception was the game Friday against Kaycee when the Buffs went ahead early and dominated, holding their opponents to single digits in all four quarters.
Hunt explained that the Buffs are “fairly young,” with several who have limited experience playing at the varsity level. On the plus side, Hunt said, “We saw a lot of good things from several of them.”
Looking at the individual games, Hunt said Wright had most of its team back from last season.
“We had a tough time slowing a couple of their guards down,” he said. “They pushed the ball well and their guards shot well.”
Give the Buffs credit. Down 25-9 at the half, Greybull cut that margin and was only outscored 19-16  in the second half.  “We made a big run at them in the second half and cut their 20-point lead and got within eight, but it wasn’t enough.” 
Kaycee was next up. Hunt said the team was young and did not have a lot of girls on the team. “We put a lot of pressure on them early and created a lot of turnovers and we capitalized on them.”  Hunt pointed out that in this second game, they scored 38 points in the paint. Hunt also said Greybull’s size gave Kaycee trouble. “Our posts did a great job finding open players.” The Buffs outplayed Kaycee, 61-24.
Senior Kennedy Craft “shot really well” and finished the game with a double-double, scoring 17 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.
Against Glenrock Saturday, Coach Hunt said, “We spotted them too many points in the first half.”  At the halfway mark, Glenrock held the 26-18 edge.  “They did a good job taking us out of our offense. They mixed up their defense a lot and it gave us some fits. We did come out in the second half fired up. We outscored  them 15-9 in the third. We were more patient and we changed our defense up a little bit to get them out of the paint. We won the second half but we had given them too many. Turnovers killed  us as well.  Too many possessions, we didn’t give ourselves an opportunity to score.”
In the closer with Lusk, Hunt said simply, “In the first three quarters they shot the lights out. They were fast and they shot so well.”  It didn’t help that one of Greybull’s starters went down early in the game. “It hurt us defensively. We just couldn’t keep up with their pace. We tried to run with them too much and made a few big runs but they shot almost 50 percent from the floor; they also out-rebounded us. That’s something we will be working on the rest of the season.”
The Lady Buffs are scheduled to play four games at the Foothills Classic, all of them at Tongue River High School in Dayton.  On Friday, Greybull plays Big Piney at noon and Tongue River at 3 p.m.  Saturday brings matchups against Wyoming Indian at 8 a.m. and Wright at 2 p.m.

Greybull          4    5  10 6 - 25
Wright         11  14  10 9 - 44
GREYBULL —  Ashton Chapman 1 1-2 3;  Jasmin Rodriguez 1 0-4 2; Sherlyn Diaz-Rios 2 0-0 4; Kennedy Craft 2 1-4 5; Camila Acuna  0 1-4 1; Mya Oatman  1 0-0 2. Totals: 10 5-17 25.
Greybull          11 10  11    9 - 38
Lusk         24  22 18  12 - 77
GREYBULL — Chapman 1 0-0 2;  Henderson 2 0-3 4;  Shayne Cheatham  2 1-2 6;  Rodriguez  2 0-3 4, Perla Rodriguez 2 0-0 4;  Craft 4 1-2 9; Gomez  2 0-2 4; Marlee Henson 1 1-1 3; Acuna 1 0-0 2. Mya Oatman 1 0-0 2.  Totals  16 2-838
Greybull         16  17  6  22 - 61
Kaycee           2    4  9    9 - 24
GREYBULL —  Henderson  3 0-0 6; Cheatham 0 1-2 1; J. Rodriguez 1 0-0 2; Diaz-Rios 5 0-0 10; P. Rodriguez 2 0-0 4; Craft 6 2-2 17; Gomez 1 0-0 2; Henson 4 0-0 8; Acuna 1 1-1 3; Oatman 4 0-0 8.  Totals: 27 4-7 61.
Greybull          10  8  15    8 - 41
Glenrock          16  20  9  10 - 55
GREYBULL —  Chapman 0 3-4 3;  J. Rodriguez 0 2-2 2; Diaz-Rios 3 0-0 6; P. Rodriguez 6 2-3 14; 3 4-6 11; Hensen 2 1-4 5.