The Beatty girls dropped two close road games on Saturday and Tuesday. The Lady Hornets lost the first game to Alamo 29-24 and then lost to Calvary Chapel 57-54.
Hornets coach Aimee Senior was a little disappointed by the Alamo loss but also a little encouraged.
Pahranagat Valley (10-6 overall, 4-0 Division IV Southern) is always tough and last year’s state champion. She feels if her team plays a complete game then she could beat teams like Round Mountain (13-5, 5-0), who is currently in first place.
“Against Round Mountain if we can shut down their tall girl, we should give them a game,” Senior said. “She’s easy to get upset. We played them in the Round Mountain tournament and lost by 14.”
To get that complete game the team needs to shoot better in the second half.
“We had the lead at halftime 15-9,” the coach said. “Then we shut down the second half and they picked up their game. We scored 2 points in the 3rd quarter. We had a hard time finding the basket in the second half.”
Senior said the Hornets (9-5, 3-1) struggled with Alamo’s man-to-man defense.
“We panicked against it,” Senior said. “We need to keep our offense spread out and run our play. They have a bench to keep their girls fresh, and our bench is short. It was a tough game to lose.”
Senior’s team was challenged by Calvary Chapel and the Hornets didn’t mind losing to that team either because that school is a Division III school.
The girls host Beaver Dam (14-2, 3-0) on Friday at 4 p.m. and gives the Hornets a chance to tie for third place.
Beatty boys basketball played Friday, Saturday and Tuesday and went 1-2. The Hornets (9-7, 3-2) beat Lund (0-9, 0-5) on Friday 53-10, lost to Alamo (12-8, 4-2) on Saturday 39-26 and lost to Calvary Chapel (10-10, 5-4) on Tuesday 80-38. The Hornets are fighting to stay at fifth place in Division IV Southern.
Beatty girls stats against Alamo: Maggie Cathcart 7 points, Denise Gonzalez 4 points, Karina Villanueva 5 points and Arianna Oseguera 5 points.
-Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com