Lady Blazers split weekend games

Andrew Towne
Posted 1/11/23

TORRINGTON – The Torrington High School girls’ basketball team went 1-1, splitting with Newcastle and Alliance, Nebraska over the weekend.

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Lady Blazers split weekend games

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TORRINGTON – The Torrington High School girls’ basketball team went 1-1, splitting with Newcastle and Alliance, Nebraska over the weekend.

On Friday, sophomore Teryn Stokes led the Lady Blazers with a double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds, while sophomore Jaycee Hurley added seven points in a 64-38 loss to Newcastle at the Dogie Dome.

“It’s always a tough place to play, and they are about as good as they will ever going to be right now with their group of seniors,” coach Chris Strampe said. “They had a great game plan and came out and executed.”

Newcastle led 11-4 at the end of one quarter, pushing the lead to 33-13 by halftime. In the second half, the Lady Dogies outscored Torrington 31-25.

“We had some stars in our eyes,” Strampe said. “We got behind and never could catch up. Kudos to them. They are a great team. We’ll see them again here, and we’ll play them better.”

The next day, the Lady Blazers returned home to face Alliance in a rescheduled contest from Dec. 13.

Torrington jumped out to a 10-3 lead, but the Lady Bulldogs weren’t going to go away.

In the end, the Lady Blazers edged Alliance 50-48 in the closing seconds for the victory.

“That’s the third time this year we’ve pulled out a really tight one in the end,” Strampe said. “We feel confident if it gets down to the end and it’s close, we have the experience to pull it out.”

Despite the early seven-point lead, Alliance stormed back in the second quarter to tie the game at 13 with 5:25 left before halftime.

Hurley put the Lady Blazers back in front 16-15 with 4:47 left before halftime.

The bucket was the last field goal Torrington knocked down until late in the third quarter.

However, during the same time frame, the Lady Blazers went 9-of-12 from the free throw line, helping keep Alliance within reach during the cold spell.

“We wanted to keep attacking, and that’s what they did. They got some fouls and put them in thankfully,” Strampe said. “We played great defense the whole game and buckled down on some rebounds.”

With 33 seconds left in the third, sophomore Olive Osmera drained a 3-pointer to draw Torrington back with one at 29-28 with eight minutes left in the game.

“She’s our resident shooter and has a knack for hitting big ones when we need it,” Strampe said. “She stepped up again tonight on a night where she was having a hard time with some other things, but she still had the confidence to hit a big shot.”

In the final quarter, the Lady Blazers exploded for 22 points, including five straight to begin the frame by Hurley to put Torrington back in front.

“It finally seemed to click for them. They were seeing things and attacking places that we had been talking about all game,” Strampe said. “When (Hurley) wants to get to the basket, there isn’t too many people who can stop her. She pulled through in the clutch. It was a good game for her. She overcame a couple things and got back mentally where we needed her to be.”

Neither team held more than a two-point advantage in the fourth.

Over the final minute of the game, the teams swapped the lead three times, and the final lead change came with 25.4 seconds left in the game when senior Marissa Moorehouse gave Torrington the lead for good.

In the closing seconds, Alliance got two more shot attempts off, both hitting rim, before senior Carleigh Dugger secured the victory at the free throw line.

Moorehouse led the team with 17 points and four rebounds, while Hurley added 14 points, five rebounds and four steals.

Torrington (6-2) is back in action on Thursday on the road against the Mitchell (Nebraska) Lady Tigers (3-7). Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.

“We’re moving on to a light week, and then in a couple weeks, we’ll get to the important ones with conference play,” Strampe said.