Cody gets the better of Powell girls basketball

Posted 12/24/19

Cody proved an inhospitable host for the Powell High School girls basketball team on Friday, with the Class 4A Fillies taking a 57-27 win over the Class 3A Panthers.

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Cody gets the better of Powell girls basketball

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Cody proved an inhospitable host for the Powell High School girls basketball team on Friday, with the Class 4A Fillies taking a 57-27 win over the Class 3A Panthers.

For the inexperienced Powell girls (0-4), it marked their fourth straight contest against a strong competitor.

“We’ve had four really good teams that we’ve had to come up against and the majority of them have a lot of varsity experience,” said PHS head coach Chelsea Buher. “And I told the girls … we can ride on that for a little bit — that we don’t have the varsity experience — but at some point, you have to just swallow that and take pride in the fact that you want more and that’s not good enough.”

Some of the same problems carried over from the Panthers’ opening weekend, but the coach also spotted some positives in Friday’s game. That included the play of junior Hailee Hyde, who shot 4-of-7 from the floor and 3-of-4 at the free throw line to put up a season-high 11 points.

“That was good to see and something that I need from her,” Buher said of Hyde.

Meanwhile, junior Rose Graft showed increased confidence in dribbling, driving the basketball and “trying to take initiative,” the coach said. Additionally, Buher continued to find that “I can always count on Sidney [O’Brien, a senior] to play good defense for us.”

“As a whole everybody continues to play hard,” Buher added. “They don’t give up and I appreciate the fact that they’re trying to do the right things.”

The biggest struggle, she said, is that the team is trying to do things exactly as they’ve been taught, when they need to begin reading situations and seeing what an opponent is giving them.

On Friday, Cody (2-2 overall) started the game on a hot streak, scoring 25 points in the opening period.

“They came out guns blazing in that first quarter, hitting three or four 3’s in a row, which is a hard one to come back from,” said Buher.

The Powell girls did remain within striking distance — only about 12 points back — with a couple minutes left to play in the half.

“If you go into the halftime down 10, 12 points … you know that you still have an opportunity to come back from it,” Buher said.

However, Cody took advantage of some PHS turnovers to make a late run and build a 24-point, 41-17 lead at the break.

“We just aren’t in game shape just yet, so I think we got tired and never really came back from it,” Buher said.

Cody took the second half by a more modest 18-10 margin.

After Hyde’s 11 points, Graft had five, Madi Fields and Rylynn Valdez had four, Sabrina Shoopman two and Paije Johnson one. O’Brien and Hyde led the team with five rebounds apiece, with Shoopman and Johnson each collecting four.

While PHS’s shooting percentage improved from week one — to roughly 32 percent — turnovers remained a problem; the Panthers gave the ball away 34 times, leading to 30 Cody points. The Fillies, meanwhile, had only about 14 turnovers.

With that ratio, “we’re going to struggle every time,” Buher said, “no matter who we’re playing.”

Over the break, the Panthers will work on conditioning and Buher plans to make some changes to the offense.

“I have the team and the personnel to run transition,” she said. “We just have to clean it up.”

After the winter break, the PHS girls will resume their season on Tuesday, Jan. 7 in Cowley, taking on Class 2A Rocky Mountain High School.

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