By Vern Hee
The Lady Trojans played their last game of the season against the Faith Lutheran Crusaders last Thursday night. They lost 57-29.
For the Trojans it was a matter of keeping the highest scoring and number one ranked team in the league to a relatively low score.
Easier said than done. The Trojans prided themselves on keeping teams to low scores with a patented tough defense, but this game they let get away from them early in the first two quarters.
Unofficially, the Trojans had over ten turnovers in the first half alone. At the half they were losing 33-8.
The Crusaders were powered by the scoring of Julia Benko who shot 26 points and had six three-pointers.
The top scorer for the Trojans was Shayla Dance with 9 points.
It took the Trojans two quarters to finally settle down. In the third, the defense held Faith to only 14 points, but only scored 8 points. This has been the story of the year. The Trojans all year played better defense and were unable to come up with enough offense.
In the fourth quarter, the Trojans did slightly better and scored 13 points and held the Crusaders to just ten points.
In the end, the Trojans won more games than last season, all of them non-league. They were 5-19 overall and 0-10 in league.
Jennifer Hagstrom, head Trojans coach, must come up with the answer for increasing the accuracy of her shooters in the offseason.
“My plans for PV Girls Basketball center around skill development,” said Hagstrom. “We will be focusing on ball handling and shooting the basketball correctly. Shooting is all about proper repetition, with the ability to self-correct and practice correct form with a large quantity of repetition.”
Hagstrom said she feels the kids need more confidence on offense.
“With the help of my assistants, that is our main goal for the spring and summer. The kids always give effort, and that effort should yield more wins when they commit to playing as smart as they do hard.”
The coach feels the team was competitive and in most of their games, if you take Faith out of the equation totally.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t squeak out any of those close games due to our inability to put the ball in the hoop. Hopefully, ‘the falling just short’ will drive the kids to put in the work this summer. To turn the corner in 1-A, our team needs to improve their ball handling, shooting and overall basketball I.Q., which will come with work throughout the summer and preseason.”
The Trojans graduate just four seniors. The team was comprised of mostly sophomores and juniors. Two talented sophomores, Shayla Dance and Alyssa Murphy will be the backbone of the team next year.
