LINGLE ñ The Lingle-Fort Laramie High School girls’ basketball team opened the 2020 portion of the schedule with mixed results.
On Friday, Jan. 10, the Lady Doggers fell to Crawford, Neb., 62-37.
“We played a really salty Crawford team, and I felt like we played up to our competition for three quarters,” L-FL coach Matt Cornelius said.
Lingle senior Ashley Riley put her team on the scoreboard first, but the Lady Rams scored the next 15 points.
Down 18-8 at the end of the first quarter, the Lady Doggers battled back in the second.
With 3:01 left before half, sophomore Tiah Meyer brought Lingle back within one at 19-18.
Two minutes later Meyer put Lingle back in front, but the lead was short-lived as the Lady Doggers trailed 23-22 at the break.
Coming out of the break, Crawford went on a 7-0 run and never trailed for the remainder of the game.
Only down six going into the fourth, the visiting Lady Rams outscored L-FL 23-4 over the final eight minutes.
“In the fourth quarter, we had a pretty serious let down,” Cornelius said. “We weren’t as mentally focused as we should have been, and Crawford hit some exceptional shots.”
He added the final eight minutes is something that is fixable moving forward.
“Those are things that we you see them earlier in the season, it allows you to manage those things and work toward fixing them,” Cornelius said. “We are going to take it as a learning experiencing and get better.”
Riley led the team with 15 points and nine rebounds, while senior Kelcie Sargent added seven points. Tiah Meyer had six points and six rebounds.
The next day, the Lady Doggers returned to the win column with a 55-11 victory over the Guernsey-Sunrise Vikings.
L-FL raced out to a 24-0 lead through the first eight and a half minutes of the game.
Guernsey got on the scoreboard early in the second quarter courtesy of a free throw, but the Lady Dogger lead only continued to grow.
“Today, the girls came out extremely focused, and I’m very proud of them,” Cornelius said. “They were boxing out very well and stepped up and shot the ball very well.”
The Lady Doggers gave up only one offensive rebound the entire game.
In the first minute of the fourth quarter, Lingle’s lead reached as many as 40, kicking in the running clock rule for the rest of the game.
Riley led the team with 21 points, while Sargent added 10. All 10 players who saw the floor for the Lady Doggers tallied at least two points in the win.
“For the weekend, it was a good learning experience, and we are a better team that what we were on Thursday,” Cornelius said.
The Lady Doggers (5-4) will wrap up a doubleheader this week at Lusk against the Niobrara County Lady Tigers (6-3) on Friday. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
