Winning weekend: Victories over Lander and Riverton keep Powell girls in No. 1 position

Posted 2/21/17

The wins kept PHS a perfect 5-0 in the Class 3A West North Quadrant and put the squad’s record at 10-8 overall.

“We needed to win both games this (past) weekend to stay in control of our destiny,” said PHS head coach Scott McKenzie.

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Winning weekend: Victories over Lander and Riverton keep Powell girls in No. 1 position

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Breaking a five-game losing streak, Powell High School girls’ basketball team came away with two wins last weekend. The first came Friday night in Lander, 48-41, with the second being a 45-35 win over Riverton on Saturday at home.

The wins kept PHS a perfect 5-0 in the Class 3A West North Quadrant and put the squad’s record at 10-8 overall.

“We needed to win both games this (past) weekend to stay in control of our destiny,” said PHS head coach Scott McKenzie.

In order to keep the north’s No. 1 seed for the 3A West Regional Tournament, Powell must beat Cody on the road Friday night.

Powell 48, Lander 41

PHS “didn’t get off to a very good start” against Lander’s Lady Tigers (6-13 overall, 1-4 in the quadrant), said coach McKenzie.

Trailing 23-18, Powell spent halftime discussing defensive pride and the importance of doing the little things.

“We weren’t really having good help defense,” McKenzie said. “Everyone was taking care of their player but not in good position to help on the drive.”

Lander got a lot of drives the first half, but Powell came out and outscored Lander 30-18 in the second half.

“Our second half was totally different from our first half,” said coach McKenzie.

After getting to the free throw line just two times in the first half, Powell got there 18 times in the second half.

By the end of the third quarter, the Lady Panthers had pulled into a 32-all tie.

The Powell girls used strong free throw shooting — going 7-for-11 in the game’s final eight minutes — to pull out the win.

“So we really did a great job of shooting free throws in the fourth quarter,” coach McKenzie said.

Dani Asay led the team with 13 points, which included a trio of 3-pointers, and four assists. Also scoring in double digits was Aubrie Stenerson, who had 11.

Maddy Hanks added seven points, three steals, two assists and eight rebounds (six on defense and two on offense).

Rachel Bonander had seven boards — four on defense and three on offense — plus three points. Jennifer Bonander had six rebounds and five points; Katie McKenzie also scored five points to round out the team’s total of 48.

Tayli Stenerson collected five steals.

Powell shot 55 percent from the free throw line overall, 25 percent from beyond the arc and 42.3 percent on 2-point shots.

“We just kept battling,” said coach McKenzie.

Powell 45, Riverton 35

After arriving back in Powell at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Powell hosted Riverton at 5:30 p.m. for the last home game of the season and senior night.

“We wanted to do well for our seniors,” said coach McKenzie. “I was really happy to beat Riverton for those seniors. They’ve done so much for our program all four years, so it was nice for them to come off that floor with applause and a win.”

All four seniors put points on the board in the 45-35 win over the Lady Wolverines (0-22 overall, 0-5 in the quadrant).

Dani Asay scored nine points, Rachel Bonander had eight, Rachel Cole had five and Tayli Stenerson had four.

Sophomore Aubrie Stenerson led the team with 14 points — including 77.8 percent shooting from the free throw line — and three steals.

Along with scoring five points, Cole led in rebounds with a total of 11 — seven on defense and four on offense. She also had two steals, one assist and a block.

Tayli Stenerson had a team-best seven assists.

“This game we just kind of gained control and maintained it,” coach McKenzie said.

Powell struggled in the first quarter and headed into the second with only five points on the board, three coming from free throws.

Powell shot 70.4 percent at the free throw line in the game, 33.3 percent from inside the 3-point arc and 18.2 percent from behind the arc.

“This is the time of year to be shooting free throws well — and we are,” said coach McKenzie. “We are excited for that as we head toward March.”

Friday will feature Powell’s last game of the regular season, as the following weekend (March 3-4) brings the 3A West Regional Tournament in Riverton.

Cody has a quadrant record of 4-1 (10-10 overall), with its single loss coming to PHS earlier this season. If Cody beats Powell on Friday, the teams will each have a 5-1 record for the quadrant, which would force a tiebreaker to determine the top seed. The tiebreaker would look at who has the better record against teams from the 3A West South Quadrant; Cody holds the tiebreaker because it beat Lyman and Powell did not.

The Powell-Cody game is set for a 5:30 p.m. tip-off at Cody’s Schweitzer Gymnasium on Friday.

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