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First half sparks Lady Buffs triumph
Published 2/8/2010 in Prep-Garden City
By JASON ELMQUIST
jelmquist@gctelegram.com
DERBY -- Fortunately, Saturday's game will only show up as a win in the record books for the Garden City High School girls basketball team. Less than 24 hours after beating Western Athletic Conference opponent Hays on Friday night, the Lady Buffaloes traveled three-plus hours to face a one-win Derby team in which GCHS beat 63-45.
"A win's a win," GCHS coach David Upton said. "We didn't like how we won and we talked about that in the locker room after the game."
Garden City jumped on Derby in the opening half, outscoring the Lady Panthers 40-19 in the first two quarters. But it was from then, according to Upton, when the Buffs let off the gas pedal -- Derby outscored GCHS in the second half 26-23.
"These girls just don't have that killer instinct," Upton said. "I think when we get up on somebody like that, they let up a little bit. And I shared with them, that when there's natural disasters you need to be compassionate, but when you step between those black lines you need to show no compassion. They've just got to develop and understand that."
The Lady Buffs (8-6) planned to utilize its height advantage -- the tallest Derby player was listed at 5-foot-10, GCHS has eight girls listed 5-10 over taller -- focusing its offensive game on 6-2 senior Carly Schmale. Though Schmale got going early, it was actually 5-6 senior point guard Syd Sassaman that led Garden City in scoring with a game-high 17 points -- after scoring just three points the night before against Hays.
"I was expecting to have more assists than I would points tonight," said Sassaman, who had two assists in the game. "But it just turned out that I was driving the basket well. We were looking to go inside, so I had no idea that I would end up with 17 points."
Schmale finished with 12 points -- all from the field -- while Garden City also got scoring from some players other than Sassaman and Schmale.
Juniors Paula Gonzales and Traci Martinez finished with 10 points each -- six of Gonzales' points coming from behind the 3-point arc, while six of Martinez's came from the charity stripe.
"It's good to see those girls get out there and score -- especially Paula," Upton said. "Paula's been struggling getting to the basket and making layups. I knew when she made that first 3-pointer that it was going to give her some confidence. So hopefully she's feeling good about herself right now."
Martinez also led the charge for the Buffaloes in the rebounding department. GCHS finished with a 36-24 rebounding advantage with Martinez hauling down a game-high eight boards, followed by Schmale, Gonzales and freshman Casey Curran with five apiece.
But things were sloppy when it came to taking care of the ball for Garden City. The Lady Buffaloes had 24 turnovers with nine of them coming in the final quarter.
"We've got to cut down on those turnovers," Sassaman said. "In practice, we've been working on fundamentals and I think we just need to keep that going and start playing smart and taking care of the ball better."
The Lady Buffaloes will return to action Tuesday with a road trip to Colby before returning home for a game Friday against Great Bend.
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Garden City 63, Derby 45
GCHS (8-6) -- Heitschmidt 1 0-0 2, Gonzales 3 2-2 10, Sassaman 6 3-4 17, Martinez 2 6-7 10, Schmale 6 0-3 12, Heiman 0 2-2 2, Curran 2 0-0 4, Brown 1 0-0 2, Ekweariri 2 0-0 4. Totals -- 22 13-18 63.
Derby (1-12) -- Onken 0 4-6 4, Jimenez 2 0-0 5, Smith 0 0-0 0, Gurley 2 4-5 9, Tullis 4 1-1 9, Liebst 5 2-3 12, Prewitt 1 0-0 2, Vorderstrasse 2 0-0 4. Totals -- 16 11-15 45.
Garden City 23 17 13 10 -- 63
Derby 13 6 14 12 -- 45
3-point field goals -- GCHS 4 (Gonzales 2, Sassaman 2); Derby 2 (Jimenez 1, Gurley 1). Rebounds -- GCHS 36 (Martinez 8, Gonzales 5, Schmale 5, Curran 5); Derby 24 (Onken 5, Tullis 4). Turnovers -- GCHS 24, Derby 23. Total fouls -- GCHS 16, Derby 16. Fouled out -- Jimenez.
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