Lady Bulldogs lose to Buffaloes after third quarter blowout; crushed by Ladysmith Lumberjacks

By Kelsie Hoitomt

MONDOVI — The Lady Bulldogs traveled to Mondovi last Friday to play the number two DSC conference team and lost 45-39. They then played Monday night in Ladysmith and lost 56-24.

The Bulldogs held their own against the Buffaloes in the first two quarters as they had the lead at half time by a point of 15-14.

It was in the third quarter when the game changed hands, as the Buffaloes blew up the court with 19 points scored compared to the Bulldogs who scored just seven.

With the Bulldogs down 33-22 going into the final quarter, the girls played their best game of the night as they scored 17 points, but that just wasn’t enough as the Buffaloes scored 12 points for the win.

“We played with a lot more hustle and desire than the previous game and although we put Mondovi on the line too many times, we decreased that number from the previous games. This is a small step in the right direction,” said coach Jolene Bird.

Mondovi was given 16 chances at free throw attempts and 12 of those were successful. The Bulldogs on the other hand were allowed 12 shots and were only successful with half of them.

The Lady Dogs struggled with turnovers as well as they had over 20 as a team, which opened up the floor for the Buffaloes to score.

“If we could have minimized turnovers in the first four minutes of the third quarter, the outcome could have been different,” said coach Bird.

The points leader of the night for the Bulldogs was Katelyn Merten who drained three deuces and two triples for 12 points.

Scoring the rest of the points for the team were Abbey Bird with nine, Alexa Peterson with six, Brooklynn Blaser and Shyanne Marlett each had four and Kennedy Hellmann and April Lake each had two.

Marlett started in her first varsity game in place of Kysa Franseen. She had five rebounds, one steal and most of all had zero turnovers.

Also getting varsity time were sophomores Mckenzie Schultz and Kayla Nelson and freshman Hope Chovan.

Crunched by Lumberjacks

Monday night’s game in Ladysmith wasn’t too pretty as the Bulldogs had too many turnovers and their shots just weren’t going in versus the Lumberjacks’ that were.

The first half was very slow with the Lady Dogs scoring just four points in the first quarter and five points in the second. Their best game was played after the half when they scored 11 points in the third, but then managed just three in the final quarter.

The Lumberjacks drained seven three pointers which accounted for almost half of their total points. They were given 22 attempts at the free throw line as well with 17 of those making it through.

The Bulldogs on the other hand had just nine attempts at the line with four shots making it through the net.

The points leader for the Bulldogs was Franseen who had three deuces and was two for two at the line. Lake was close behind with seven points, Bird had four, Peterson had three and Blaser had two.

The Bulldogs will look for a conference win as they wrap up their stretch of road games on Thursday in Elk Mound against the 5-3 Mounders.