Hames approaches milestone in loss

ACKLEY — With senior Alyssa Hames needing 22 points to reach 1,000 for her career before the Cougars’ North Iowa Cedar League West game against West Marshall, the pressure was on.

The result was a lot of forced shots that wouldn’t go and West Marshall’s stout defense led to a 36-29 win for the visiting Lady Trojans on Friday, Jan. 22.

“I love milestones and I hate milestones,” AGWSR coach Laurie Gann said. “The kids deserve it, they’ve worked hard to get it, but I have not had a kid yet that I’ve coached, when we get close…22 points was too big of a spread for tonight against a good quality team like West Marshall.

“Once we get past that, things will settle down quite a bit.”

Hames finished with 15 points in the loss, needing seven more against Hudson on Monday, Jan. 25.

“I think the team (we played) had a lot to do with it,” AGWSR coach Laurie Gann said. “We have one girl who has been coming off the bench quite a bit in quarantine, the Hoodjer girl, and we had to figure out what other option (we had); I think it affected us a little bit.

“That’s just a disaster waiting to happen with a team like West Marshall that is so physical, they wear you down.”

West Marshall came out in the second half and outscored the Cougars 16-9 to erase the 15-12 deficit at the half.

In that stretch, Katy Ryerson had 11 of her game-high 17 points while going 6-of-6 from the free throw line.

“The difference in the second half was press break,” Gann said. “We did not run that like we usually should. We can’t dribble through it and think we can just get a foul or a lay-up. We are bigger than most teams, take the press break and run it, we are usually very effective. We didn’t do that tonight.”

West Marshall 36

AGWSR 29

West Marshall (8-5) — Kikki Pfantz 1-6 3-5 5, Lauren Solberg 1-7 0-0 3, Delaney Nichols 4-4 0-0 8, Avery Randall 0-3 3-4 3, Katy Reyerson 5-10 6-6 17, Adisyn Young 0-0 0-0 0, Kate Braja 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 11-31 12- 15 36.

AGWSR (9-4)— Karis Lippert 0 0-0 0, Alyssa Hames 6 3-6 15, Brynn Smith 1 0-0 3, Chaylie Lippert 0 0-0 0, Avery Lafrenz 0 0-0 0, MaKenna Kuper 1 0-0 2, Morgan Bakker 0 0-0 0, Grace Finger 4 0-0 9. Totals 12 3-6 29.