Lady Vikings shut down potent Mission shooters
CHARLO — The Charlo and Mission girls basketball teams met on Friday night in a Lake County battle, with the Lady Vikings besting their rivals 40-27 when all was said and done.
CHARLO — The Charlo and Mission girls basketball teams met on Friday night in a Lake County battle, with the Lady Vikings besting their rivals 40-27 when all was said and done.
The two squads were tied 16-16 at the end of the first half, but Charlo would pick things up in the second, outscoring the Lady Bulldogs 24-11.
Bolstering that effort for the Lady Vikings was Rachel Hoyt, who finished the night with a double-double, dropping 11 points and pulling down 12 boards.
“She’s the center of our offense,” Charlo head coach Bret Thompson said. “Mission had to spend a lot of time defending her, and luckily we were able to get her into a position to where she could still score, and with that we were able to get some other girls open.”
Among those other girls that were able to get open and generate points were Haley Berkram (nine), Jordan Ludeman (eight), Aspen Runkel (five), Derika Stipe (four), Abby Knight (two) and McKalistar Rosenbaum (one).
Another thing that helped ensure a Charlo win was the Lady Vikings ability to shut down the heart of the Bulldogs offense in Stephanie Lewandowski and Loren Erickson.
Lewandowski entered the game coming off a week in which she had scored 54 points in a two-game span, while Erickson had 19 points in that same stretch.
With that in mind, Thompson knew stopping them would be the key to victory.
“I believe a lot of [Lewandowski’s] scoring was also because of [Loren Erickson], so those were the two that we thought we had to control, and luckily we were able to do that,” Thompson said. “Being able to control them helped our defense and made it difficult for them to score.”
Lewandowski would finish the night with seven points, while Erickson would tally just two and Haley O’Hern’s eight points would lead the Lady Bulldogs.
Emilie Charlo (four), Kaylie Durglo (two) and Sahriha Camacho (two) also put points on the scoreboard for Mission.
The Lady Bulldogs will go on the road to face Florence on Dec. 20.
CHARLO VS.
ST. REGIS
CHARLO — After downing Lake County rival Mission the night before, the Lady Vikings looked to be on their way to another win on Saturday, this time against conference foe St. Regis.
However, despite holding a 29-22 lead over the Lady Tigers, Charlo would give up 17 points to St. Regis in the final quarter, 14 of which came from freshman Pilar Cantrell-Field in the final 8 minutes.
The Lady Vikings failed to keep up, tallying just six points in the final frame and coming up just short of the victory, losing 39-35.
“It wasn’t easy thing to watch at the end of the game,” Thompson said.
Thompson said the main thing that did Charlo in during that last quarter was its subpar shooting.
“It was poor shot selection on our part,” Thompson said. “We kind of got away from what we did in the third quarter to get the lead and then [St. Regis] hit some buckets down the stretch and we had a hard time finding the basket.”
Berkram topped the team with 11 points, followed by Hoyt and Runkel with eight apiece. Ludeman added six, while Sienna Brown scored two as well.
Cantrell-Field led the Lady Tigers with 23 points, nine points more than the rest of her team’s point totals combined.
Looking ahead, Thompson said Charlo will have to be able to generate more points to find success, as the Lady Vikings have yet to score more than 42 points in a game.
“You’ve got to put more offense in and we didn’t do a very good job of it,” Thompson said. “We definitely have our work cut out.”
Charlo enters its next two contests, a home game against Two Eagle River School on Dec. 20 and a road matchup with Noxon on Dec. 21, determined to get back in the win column.
“Right now we’re 0-1 in the conference, so we’ve got some work to do and we’ve got to dig ourselves out and do a little better job on both ends of the floor,” Thompson said. “Hopefully, we can get things changed around.”