Rising Intensity Helps Scottie Girls Soar

For the Scotties girls, winless out of conference, but undefeated in conference, it all comes down to intensity.

In three contests in District 2B so far, the Scottie girls have been focused and disciplined from the jump to the final buzzer, and it’s made all the difference. The Scottie girls had two conference games this weekend and came away with victories over Harlem, 50-32, on Friday and at Plentywood, 71-51, on Saturday.

What was the key to the two victories?

“The intensity. Everybody that came into the game seemed to be very intense,” said Head Coach Chuck Barstad. “We still made a lot of mistakes but we were able to get a lot of that back with hustle.”

The Scottie girls also seemed to make progressive improvements on offense through both contests.

“We were able to get it down inside a little more,” said Barstad.

Post players Laurel Wageman and Lexis Synan were the main beneficiaries as they were able to get ball down low and make a quick move for an open shot. And if they weren’t open, they were able to find one of their teammates for a good look.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make the open shots fall.

“We missed a lot of lay ups,” said Barstad.

Fortunately for the Scottie girls, their defense kept them up by a comfortable margin and they were able to cruise to the victory. On Saturday, those open shots began to fall more.

They jumped out of the gates to a 14-point lead after the first quarter against Plentywood and never looked back. They extended their lead to 18 at half and exchanged runs in the second half for the final 71-51 victory and the season-high point total for the girls. Their previous best was 51 against Saco-Whitewater on Dec. 20.

But it might not have been their improved offense that was the key to the game.

“I thought we did a very good job defensively,” said Barstad. “The girls did a good job of crashing down on [Plentywood’s 6’0” center Cara] Stadstad.”

The Scottie girls limited Stadstad to four points. She came into the game averaging well in the double digits.

Glasgow has an even taller task in front of them now, though. The Scottie girls travel to Malta to take on the undefeated M’Ettes on Thursday.

“Malta is a very fast, very good shooting and good defensive team,” said Barstad.

The M’Ettes are led by senior point guard Courtney Henry, who was also the leader of Malta’s run to the championship in 2011-12. She’s joined by returning starter Jayla Grahan at the forward position and sophomore 6’1” post-player Darby Schye.

It’ll be a tough matchup for the undersized Scottie girls, who have faced height and have faced speed but not one team that is able to put both on the floor at the same time like the M’Ettes can.

The next day, the Scottie girls will again be on the road – their eighth in 10 games – as they travel to Poplar to take on the Lady Indians.

Poplar has struggled so far this season with a 2-6 overall record and 1-2 in conference after beating winless Harlem 48-31 in December for their lone District 2B victory.