Scottie Ballers Split With Win/Loss to Sidney

The Scottie girls basketball team claimed a crushing victory over the Sidney Eagles 66 – 32 at their face off on Dec. 20 in Sidney. The Scottie boys did not fair as well after losing a hard fought battle with a loss of 52 – 50.

The Scottie girls maintained control of the leader board the entire game, seizing the lead in the first quarter and continuing to bury the Eagles under a steady stream of points throughout the game. Also high on the board were fouls. The Scotties had nine fouls in the first half and eight in the second. Despite the attempts, the Eagles were only able to connect with six of 14 attempts from the free-throw line. They also cost themselves with a total of 27 fouls of which the Scotties drained 16 of 23.

Leading the girls to victory was Abrianna Nielsen with 17 total points. Nine of those points came from the perimeter, two from inside and four from the free-throw line (where she drained a hundred percent of her attempts) and all of her points were scored in the second half. Keely Fossum also significantly contributed to the team’s win with 14 total points. She also drained threes to rack up nine of those points, and she hit one from inside the line and drained three of four from the free-throw line. Tyann Graham rounded off the double-digit scorers for the Scotties with 12 total points. She hit two from behind the three-point line and shot 66 percent from the free-throw line, draining four out of six.

The Scottie boys had a much harder fight ahead of them walking into the Eagles’ gymnasium on Dec. 20. The boys gave up the lead early on, falling behind in the first half by 12 points, but they climbed out of the hole in the third quarter by putting up 20 points and holding the Eagles to 11 total points in the third quarter. That quarter made the score going into the fourth 41 to 38 with the Eagles ahead by only three.

In the fourth quarter the teams evened up as the Scottie outscored Sidney 12 to 11, but it would not be enough to overcome the Eagles three-point lead and take the game. The final score was 52-50. Notably the Scotties received 22 opportunities from the free-throw line and drained 13 of those attempts. They also scored nine points from the perimeter with three behind the three-point line. The remainder of the Scotties points came from the inside with Bergen Miller putting up 14 of those points to help keep the game close. He would score a total of 19 points along with Alec Boland’s 19 to tie for high score. Kobe Sibley also put up seven points followed by Tim Wageman (3) and Saul Hansen (2).

Both Scottie teams will play Poplar at home on Jan. 2 and then will travel to Glendive on Jan. 4.