NEODESHA—A good night for Yates Center High’s girls’ basketball team almost never was. Never trailing in Tuesday night’s game, the Wildcats beat Neodesha High’s Bluestreaks 32-28.
Though the team earned its second victory of the season — the Wildcats are 2-3 overall and 1-1 in Tri-Valley League play — a poor rebounding effort almost cost Yates Center the game, said Wildcat head coach Abbie Collins.
“We need to rebound the ball better,” she said. “We’re just not finding the ball very well. They had a lot of offensive rebounds and that’s where they got a lot of their shots.”
But a quality offensive outing and a decent night from the charity stripe allowed Yates Center to hold off Neodesha in the end. Seven Wildcat girls scored during the game — Emily Baker set the pace for the Wildcats with 10 points and five of her teammates contributed four points each — and went 8 of 13 from the free throw line. The Bluestreaks only managed seven free throws attempts, making four. That proved to be the difference as both teams had nine two-point field goals and two three-pointers.
“I played a bunch of different girls tonight just to try and get something different going,” Collins said.
Leading the Bluestreaks in the losing effort was Ivey with a game high 11 points and Littau with 10. First names of Neodesha players were not available.
Yates Center (11-5-6-10—32) (FG/3-pt): Steinforth 0-0-2-0, Baker 0/2-4-1-10, Holloway 0-2-0-4, Francis 2-0-3-4, Bruner 0-0-3-0, Smith 1-2-0-4, Leach 1-2-2-4, Chambers 2-0-2-4, Estes 1-0-3-2. TOTALS: 9/2-8-18-32.
Neodesha (8-4-6-10—28) : Hawkens 0/1-0-4-3, Gutchenritter 1-0-2-2, Ivey 2/1-4-1-11, Anderes 0-0-1-0, Farmer 1-0-4-2, Granger 0-0-4-0, Littau 5-0-3-10. TOTALS: 9/2-4-19-28.
