Your future, our focus
Stumble Against Dawson
The Northwest College women’s basketball team learned an important lesson about focus last week. When they have it, as was the case in the team’s 96-79 win over No. 18 Gillette last Wednesday, the Trappers can play with just about anyone.
When they don’t have it, however, NWC struggles. That was the case Thursday night as the Trappers fell 83-76 to Dawson, a team that entered the night eighth in the nine-school Region IX North standings.
On Wednesday night, the Trappers played to their full potential in knocking off their third ranked opponent of the season, making the task look rather pedestrian in the process. To a casual observer, it may well have appeared as though Northwest was the team receiving national attention as the Trappers shot better than 57 percent from the floor while holding Gillette to 36 percent on the way to opening a 42-26 halftime lead.
That proved to be just the beginning. Northwest continued to extend upon its advantage throughout the second half, growing its lead to as many as 29 points before a late flurry of shooting by the visiting team narrowed the final gap to 17 points.
“I think we have a good mix to match up against Gillette,” said Trapper head coach Janis Beal, explaining why her squad had such a seemingly effortless time dropping Gillette to an 18-4 record for the season. “Sometimes the pieces don’t fit and that causes you problems, but I thought with Gillette that the personnel we had matched up well with the personnel they had. They have a good post player and we have a good post player. They’ve got some speedy guards and I thought our guards could hang with theirs. It’s just one of those cases where our strengths matched up well with theirs.”
As a result, the Trappers made it look effortless.
Kennedy Allen led a parade of five Northwest College players in double figures with 21 points. Andressa Augusto added 19 points. Leslie Thronburg finished with 16 points and Savannah Minder had 13 points and seven assists, meaning four of Northwest’s five starters finished in double digits in the scoring column. Imari Simpson also came off the bench to give Northwest an additional 11 points.
“Having five players in double figures, that shows that as a team, as a whole, everybody came out ready to play,” said Beal. “It wasn’t just one or two girls on their game. We had everyone come out ready to play and we maintained a level of performance for the whole game for the most part.”
That showed on the defensive end of the floor as well, where the Trappers forced 23 Gillette turnovers in the game.
“In the first half, a big part of it came defensively,” said Beal. “We were able to get some stops that led to us getting some easy baskets going the other way. We really took them out of what they wanted to do in the first half.”
Even with the baskets that didn’t come easy, the Trappers seemed to be in a zone. Northwest finished 8-for-13 from 3-point territory and connected on 80 percent of its 30 free throw attempts. Gillette never held a lead in the contest.
Following the Wednesday night game, Beal expressed her hope that the game would lift the team as the Trappers prepared for the second half of Region IX North play. Unfortunately, as the following night demonstrated, that was not the case.
As hot as the Trappers had played in their Wednesday win over Gillette, the Trappers came out ice cold in their game against Dawson, a team they had defeated 80-71 on the road last December.
After falling behind by four in the game’s first 90 seconds, Dawson went on to control the rest of the first half, shooting nearly 53 percent from the field and limiting Northwest to less than 39 percent accuracy. Dawson built a 43- 29 advantage at intermission, then pressed that gap to 21 points with 14:35 remaining in the contest.
From there, the Trapper women were able to battle back. The deficit proved to be too much to claw back from though as Dawson escaped back to Montana with an 83-76 victory.
Allen again sparkled for the Trappers, leading all scorers with 24 points in the game. Augusto finished with 11 points and Thronburg closed the night with 10 points and eight rebounds.
“The biggest thing is taking each game one game at a time,” Beal said as the Trappers moved to 11-12 overall and 4-5 in Region IX North play. The Trappers return to action on Wednesday with a road game at Central Wyoming (10-12, 3-5).
Northwest 96, Gillette 79
Minder 13, Augusto 19, Allen 21, Thronburg 16, Blackburn 1, Williams 3, Winterholler 8, Lund 4, Simpson 11.
Dawson 83, Northwest 76
Minder 6, Augusto 11, Allen 24, Thronburg 10, Blackburn 4, Williams 6, Winterholler 9, Simpson 6.