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HARTINGTON — The Hartington-Newcastle Lady Wildcats continue to improve on the young season despite dropping a couple of games over the past week.
The Lady Wildcats were defeated by Pierce on Dec. 9, 47-24, in a game played in Hartington and were defeated by Class D2 power, Humphrey St. Francis, 49-24 on the road in Humphrey Dec. 5.
In the game with the Lady Bluejays, Pierce jumped out to a 9-3 lead after the opening quarter and the Lady Wildcats couldn’t buy a basket in the second frame, putting up a zero in the scoring column while the Lady Bluejays built a 21-3 lead heading into the intermission.
The Lady Wildcats looked better in the second half, putting up 21 points, but the first-half deficit was just too much to overcome and Pierce went home with the 47-24 victory.
Mani Lange led the Hartington-Newcastle offense with seven points, including a 5-for-5 performance from the free-throw line.
Maddie Steffen and Zoey Gratzfeld added five points each and Lauren Howell contributed four. Gratzfeld grabbed six missed shots; Olivia Grutsch and McKenzie Bruning each grabbed three caroms.
The St. Francis game was a big learning contest for the Lady Wildcats.
“You’re going to get pressed and pressured when you play St. Francis,” Hartington-Newcastle coach Grant Rolfes said. “We started the game not handling it like we wanted to handle it.”
That start led to a 12-0 hole to open the game, from which it is really hard to recover against the likes of the Lady Flyers.
After trailing 20-5 at the end of the first frame, the Lady Wildcats responded by scoring 10 points in the second quarter, but St. Francis added a point to the advantage with 11 to send the teams to the halftime locker room with Hartington-Newcastle trailing 31-15.
The Lady Flyers outscored the Lady Wildcats 9-6 in the third and 9-3 in the fourth to arrive at the 49-24 final score.
McKenzie Bruning led the way offensively for the Lady Wildcats, pouring in 10 points on the evening. Steffen added five and Gratzfeld tacked on four.
Grutsch grabbed six rebounds to lead the team in that category; Gratzfeld and McKenzie Bruning each had five and Howell had four.
Lange and Grutsch recorded three steals apiece. “I thought we took some nice steps in handling their pressure, which hopefully can carry over to future games,” Rolfes said. “We have to continue to work on being aggressive and finding ways to score.”
Hartington-Newcastle was scheduled to travel to Allen Dec. 12 to take on the Tri County Northeast Lady Wolfpack in Lewis and Clark Conference action. The Lady Wildcats will continue the season with a pair of conference dates with Walthill on Dec. 15 in Hartington and on the road with Osmond-Randolph on Dec. 16. A final non-conference game with Boyd County is set for Dec. 19 in Hartington before the moratorium.
H-N (1-3) 5 10 6 3 - 24 HSF (4-1) 20 11 9 9 - 49 P=Points, R=Rebounds, A=Assists, S=Steals, B=Blocks. HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE: Lange 1-7 0-0 2P, 3R, 3S; Reyes 0-1 0-0 0P, 1R; Howell 0-1 1-4 1P, 4R, 2S; Grutsch 0-4 2-2 2P, 6R, 1A, 3S; Gratzfeld 1-8 2-2 4P, 5R, 2S; M. Bruning 4-9 2-2 10P, 5R, 2A; Steffen 1-10 3-6 5P, 3R, 1S; Karissa Bruning 0-1 0-0 0P; Karli Bruning 0-3 0-0 0P, 1R. PIE (2-1) 9 12 13 13 - 47 H-N (1-3) 3 0 9 12 - 24 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE:ManiLange1-35-57P,1R,2A, 3S; Alejandra Reyes 0-1 0-0 0P, 2R, 1S; Lauren Howell 1-2 2-5 4P, 2R, 2S; Olivia Grutsch 0-3 0-0 0P, 3R; Zoey Gratzfeld 2-5 0-0 5P, 6R, 1A, 2B; McKenzie Bruning 1-6 1-2 3P, 3R, 1S; Maddie Steffen 2-9 0-0 5P, 1R; Karli Bruning 0-1 0-0 0P.
