Junior duo takes over as Bulldogs nip AGWSR

ACKLEY – No doubt about it, the Bulldogs are going to rely on their two experienced starters.

Avery Hanson’s 30 points and Lauren Meader added 20 more points that were just enough to overtake AGWSR in an early-season nail-biter with a 56-53 win for coach Miranda Valley’s squad on Tuesday, Dec. 1.

Matching talents with all-state Cougar senior Alyssa Hames, who led AGWSR with 24 points and 10 rebounds, surpassing the career 500 rebound mark, it was a good game of back-and-forth between the ultra-talented trio.

“That is one of the biggest teams we’ll see and we are not big,” Valley said. “Alyssa, she took over, she’s a great player, so long. Lauren could match up with her out on the perimeter, but her arms are so much longer.

“We worked really hard to get the ball out of her hands and make somebody else do something and so that kind of confused them and they were baffled but it was fun to watch. The match-up between Lauren and her was fun, also.”

AGWSR head coach Laurie Gann agreed.

“Alyssa just had an awesome game,” Gann said. “She is on track – I expect that every night out of her – they (Meader and Hames) have played each other at different times in different places and Grace (Finger) has played with them and so we have a little connection with them, but two quality players…Meader is just continually…to me she is probably the best point guard we’re going to see all year unless we get somewhere down the road, down the line.”

The Cougars led by nine at 48-39 with 5 minutes, 18 seconds left to go following a pair of Hames baskets, but both Meader and Hanson took over. A steal and score by Meader at 1:50 had the Bulldogs down 50-49 and Hames temporarily gave the Cougars a 52-49 lead 10 seconds later.

Hanson came down the court and hit a stone cold three-pointer from the top of the key to tie the game with 1:12 to go.

“She lives for moments like that,” Valley said of Hanson’s stunning shot. “She loves it. She’s one of the biggest competitors, she loves to have that moment, coming back from the Algona game last year. That’s what she does. It didn’t surprise me a bit that she would step up in that instance.”

Gann said her team couldn’t have defended that sort of thing any better.

“They made the tough shots,” Gann said. “Give them credit for that. What can you do? Our kids have to take it as a confidence-builder and we’ve got a good confidence game on Friday and come back with a little…they might not be as good as Hampton, but we can’t have a let-down.”

All of this despite the fact that both Meader and Hanson played down the stretch with foul trouble. Hanson picked up her fourth foul with 7:47 left in the fourth, Meader tallied her fourth just 13 seconds later.

Meader had two fouls within the first minute of the game as AGWSR jumped on the Bulldogs early.

“Can’t help it – that’s just her adrenaline going – and she’s just excited to finally be out on the court again and playing basketball,” Valley said. “She had to take the Summer off with everything, so she was excited to be out there. She played three quarters without another foul.

“They know they have to be on the floor. I told them they are not going to come out: whether they have two fouls or four fouls, you’re not coming out, so figure out how to play. So, I was proud of them. They played still very hard defense.”

Beyond that trio, however, there was very little varsity experience out on the court and both coaches bemoaned that.

“I told them in the locker room, ‘yes, we start four upperclassmen, but really, we start two kids with any varsity experience,’” Valley said. “Faith (Grover) and Alana (Johnson) played very limited minutes last year. They got better sitting on the bench and that took over tonight in those moments. They are so game-wise that it’s going to be fun to watch them getting better. They knew what it took tonight when we made mistakes. I was excited to come out of here with a win.”

Gann added, “We battled, we made a game of it. Our bench is still not as deep as we want it to be with some of our younger players. We hope that keeps developing as the season goes on and we’ve seen lots of positives and you can take from the fact that at times we were standing around. That might have been fatigue, some of it might have been because we have seven or eight going, but really only six.

“We’ve got a few new players starting, obviously we have a lot of experience with Kuper and Hames, Finger. The other two spots are kind of their first real experience. I want to win, obviously, but I’m proud of the girls. Hampton played a great game, made some tough shots on us, thought we defended and couldn’t have done much better. There are nights if we keep playing at this level and keep getting better, we’ll be on the right path.”

Makenna Kuper finished with 12 points, but on a key late sequence, she missed a free throw, got her own rebound, but turned the ball over and fouled Hanson, who made both of her foul shots with 27.3 second left.

“We need to learn more of the season,” Gann said. “We executed for the most part. Rebounding was a little disappointing in the first half, we felt like we had lulls. We’ve got to get better at not having those lulls. With good teams, you can’t have that to come out on the winning side. We play Hampton for a reason: it’s a bigger school, they help develop us and sometimes it’s not all about wins and losses, it’s about learning how to get better and this is a big learning lesson for us.”

Bulldogs 56, AGWSR 53 

Bulldogs (1-0, 0-0)– Teaghan Bird 0 0-0 0, Alana Johnson 0 0-0 0, Lauren Meader 8 2-4 20, Avery Hanson 10 8-9 30, Gina Schmit 2 0-0 4, Faith Grover 1 0-0 2, Kacey Springer 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 10-13 56.

AGWSR (1-1, 0-0)– Alyssa Hames 12-20 0-3 24, Brynn Smith 0-1 0-0 0, MaKenna Kuper 4-8 3-6 12, Morgan Bakker 4-4 1-3 9, Grace Finger 2-8 4-5 8, Chaylie Lippert 0-0 0-0 0, Kienzie Hoodjer 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 22-42 8-18 53.

Bulldogs    13   14     8   19      -   56

AGWSR     13   16   13   13      -   53

Three-point goals– H-D 4 (Meader 2, Hanson 2); AGWSR 1-13 (Kuper 1-1, Hames 0-1, Finger 0-1). Rebounds– H-D, NA; AGWSR 29 (Hames 10, Bakker 6, Finger 5, Smith 4, Kuper 2, Hoodjer 2).Assists– H-D, NA; AGWSR 17 (Finger 7, Smith 4, Kuper 3, Hames 2). Steals– H-D, NA; AGWSR 2 (Hames 2). Blocks – H-D, None; AGWSR 2 (Kuper, Hoodjer). Total fouls – H-D NA, AGWSR 11. Fouled out – None.