LINGLE – A day after falling to cross-county rival and No. 2-ranked Southeast Lady Cyclones 39-26, the Lingle-Fort Laramie High School girls’ basketball team bounced back with a dominating 49-30 victory over the Niobrara County High School on Friday evening.
On Thursday, the Lady Doggers fell behind 6-0 in the first two minutes of the game, but Lingle chipped away at the deficit over the next eight minutes.
LFL sophomore Natalie Speckner got the Lady Doggers on the scoreboard, and it was the start of 10-straight points by the visitors.
In the end, Lingle couldn’t hold on to the second-quarter lead as Southeast pulled away late in the fourth quarter, handing LFL a the 13-point loss.
The Lady Doggers raced out to a 15-1 lead before the visiting Lady Tigers scored their first field goal of the game.
“When my girls get going and start clicking, it’s fun to watch,” LFL coach Susan Bartel said. “We’ve talked about that as a team, and the girls can feel it themselves when they start clicking. They read each other well. There is a lot of potential there with that.”
After a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by NCHS at the end of the first quarter, the LFL lead continued to grow throughout the second quarter, reaching 35-12 by halftime.
“They came back and played well today. They got back in their groove a little bit,” Bartel said. “I told the girls to go out and have some fun and play their game.”
That’s exactly what the team did.
Throughout the first half, the Lady Doggers utilized a full-court press, aiding in the 23-point lead.
“My girls love to play like that. They love to get the ball going,” Bartel said. “We pulled it off in the second half, and let it be more of a half-court game.”
In the second half, Lingle pulled the press and get the younger players some valuable varsity minutes.
Over the course of the second half, the Lady Tigers outscored LFL 18-14.
“I told the team in the locker room, this was a team win. This was the whole team winning,” Bartel said. “The nice part is when you have some girls who aren’t on their game, you have someone right behind them who is on their game. We saw that against Southeast and again (Friday). It really pulls a team together.”
Three Lady Doggers scored in double-figures, led by junior Ashlee Hattan with 15. Junior Kamryn Rafferty added 12 and Speckner had 12. Speckner led the team with six rebounds and 11 steals, and as a team, LFL tallied 20 steals.
The Lady Doggers (6-5) lone game of the weekend is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Guernsey (1-7).
