Lady Spartans' quick start helps speed past Lady Trojans
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
For 16 minutes Tuesday night in Hillsboro, the Hillsboro High School Lady Trojans were able to play their style of basketball against the Wichita Collegiate Lady Spartans.
However, after that the Spartans controlled the game, and the Trojans found themselves behind by halftime, 40-14.
HHS hung with the Spartans (4-1) better in the second half, but the first was enough to bury anybody, much less a young team like Hillsboro, as Collegiate hung on for a 59-34 victory.
"At halftime, we really talked about what we needed to take care of and do," Trojan coach Nathan Hiebert said. "Executing our screens, actually running our offense; (Collegiate) has some good pressure and it took us out of what we wanted to do.
"We slowed down, set a pick, and really focused on getting every cut and doing the best we could and we started to see some good things there."
The fast, smothering defense of Collegiate forced 20 first-half Hillsboro turnovers that added up to better than half of Collegiate's 40 points.
The Trojans didn't have an answer for stopping freshman phenom Ashia Woods, who dumped a game-high 23 points on Hillsboro in the first half alone, including three triples.
The Spartans built a lead as big as 38-11, due in part to a 22-0 run with Woods supplying 12 of the unanswered points.
Getting a shot was hard enough in the first half alone as Hillsboro was 4-10 through the first half and 11-25 for the game.
Collegiate's quickness equaled more shots as well, and the Spartans connected on 21-48 from the floor in the first half, and 25-57 on the night.
Hillsboro was able to break the press more often with Woods on the bench in the second half with an injury.
Dakota Kaufman and Amy Neufeld combined for 23 points with Kaufman's team-high 13.
"We were using our whole team to break the press and we were actually making the proper cuts rather than just kind of scrambling over to the ball," Hiebert said. "Collegiate definitely has some speed and we've got to give them credit with the kind of game they're playing.
"We're still trying to get experience and it's hard to mimic that speed on the court. They do some nice things."
The Trojans close out the year at home Friday, playing host to the Halstead Lady Dragons with a 6 p.m. tip in the make-up game that was slated for Dec. 13.
