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GCHS girls top Indians
Published 2/6/2010 in Prep-Garden City
By KEVIN THOMPSON
sports@gctelegram.com
It was a tough weekend last week for the Lady Buffaloes, dropping three games in the Newton tournament. What coach David Upton was looking for was a good win in front of a home crowd. If it was against a Western Athletic Conference opponent, even better.
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Raymond Hillegas/Hays Daily News Garden City High SchoolÕs Cydnie Brown eyes a pass over the defending arms of HaysÕ Hanna Pfannenstiel, far left, and Carissa Wickham during the second half of FridayÕs game at Hays.
That's exactly what he got as his girls opened up what was a relatively close game by taking care of business against WAC opponent Hays High, 59-40.
This was a rematch of a game played in December at the Hays tournament when Garden City torched the Lady Indians 76-40.
The lower output tonight, Upton said, was due to a combined better Hays team this time around that played with different defensive sets, and a bit of effort issues from his own team.
"I knew coming into this game that Hays would be improved," he said. "They hung around with us in that first half. But the girls picked up their defensive intensity in the second half and we just ran away with it."
Hays held a 9-8 lead with under two minutes to play in the first quarter, thanks in part to a perimeter defense that forced Garden City outside. Then Syd Sassaman hit her only basket of the night -- a three-pointer from the top of the key -- and Kristen Heiman hit a pair of free throws for a 13-9 lead.
Traci Martinez's three got the Lady Buffaloes charged, and she and Carly Schmale led the team to a 24-18 halftime lead.
That tandem stepped it up in the third period, scoring 12 of the team's 15 points. The game plan looked to be to use those two to pound the ball inside, maybe creating some foul trouble at the same time against the Hays inside game.
The plan worked. Lindsey Schreidler had scored 11 points for Hays in the first half and grabbed a number of boards. In the second half, she scored zero and fouled out.
Credit the team effort, Upton said.
"We talked about it at half," he said. "We told them we wanted to go inside-out today and the girls weren't seeing the looks in the first half. But we ran one offense the second half to pound the ball inside and they did a good job."
Schmale had a huge night for Garden City, scoring 22 points and grabbing six boards. That was a welcome sight for Upton.
"She's been kind of in a lull lately, and we've been waiting for her to wake up. Tonight she really did," he said. "She took it to the basket strong right at (Schreidler) and did a good job for us."
Martinez added 12 points and nine rebounds.
"That's huge for us," he said of his duo. "That's almost like we were earlier in the season when you could pick a night and any two girls could score for us. Tonight it was those two. They stepped up and did the things they need to."
Even in the loss, Hays' first half was a plus for coach Kirk Maska. And holding Garden City to under 59 points after their first meeting was a bonus.
"We tried to jump in and out of the defenses and mix things up a bit," he said. "The defensive end isn't what's causing us problems. We can't get anybody to put the ball in the hole on the other end."
The Lady Indians only hit a quarter of their shots and were 0-for-19 from beyond the arc.
"We missed a lot of opportunities. Until we fix problems on the offensive end, we're going to struggle," Maska said.
The two teams will hook up again in Hays on Feb. 19. In the meantime, Garden City will look to make it two straight as they travel to Derby today.
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Garden City 59, Hays 40
HAYS HIGH (0-2, 4-11) -- Lundsford 3-11 8-12 14, Schreidler 3-6 5-6 11, Ganyon 2-5 3-4 7, Pfannenstiel 1-10 2-3 4, Steffen 2-4 0-0 4, Schmeidler 0-0 0-2 0. Totals 11-44 18-27 40.
GARDEN CITY (3-1, 7-7) -- C. Schmale 6-13 10-12 22, Martinez 3-6 5-6 12, Heitschmidt 2-7 1-2 5, Curran 2-2 1-3 5, Heiman 1-4 2-3 4, Sassaman 1-5 0-0 2, Gonzales 0-3 2-4 2, Garcia 1-2 0-0 2, Brown 1-2 0-0 2, J. Schmale 0-0 2-2 2. Totals 17-44 23-32 59.
Hays 9 9 8 14 -- 40
GCHS 13 11 15 20 -- 59
3-Point goals -- Hays 0-19; GCHS 2-11 (Martinez 1-4, Sassaman 1-5). Rebounds -- Hays 31 (L. Schreidler 8, Lundsford 6): GCHS 38 (Martinez 9, Gonzales 8, C. Schmale 6). Fouls -- Hays 22; GCHS 22. Fouled out -- Hays (Steffen. Schreidler); GCHS (C. Schmale).
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