WAUSA — As the 2023-24 season winds down, the Wausa girls basketball team is searching for the best way to reignite its campaign as it has in recent years.
The Lady Vikings (2-12) lost all three games last week and are only weeks away from the postseason, which Wausa has entered the past two years on a high note. Now, it’s about finding that same magic formula with a little less time to spare.
Wausa lost tough decisions at Bloomfield (58-27) on Jan. 23 and Summerland (66-28) on Jan. 25 before dropping the opening game of the Lewis and Clark Conference Tournament at No. 1 seed Plainview 49-28 on Jan. 27. Wausa is the eighth seed on the Lewis side of the bracket.
Lady Vikings head coach Shane Anderson had good feelings heading into the rematch with the Queen Bees despite not having played in more than two weeks.
“Probably more than anything, I was just excited for the girls to be able to play again,” Anderson said. “We had only had three practices during that time as well, and it showed. We started the game off well, leading and playing good defense. A few turnovers led to some runouts in the second quarter, but we were only trailing by five at half.
“Bloomfield is typically not a very good three-point-shooting team outside of their star, Madison Abbenhaus, but unfortunately she hit a couple and they had two others hit multiple outside shots as well and blew the game open in the third quarter.”
Wausa finished 8-for-57 shooting from the field and hit only one of 20 triple attempts.
Sophomore Taylor Dawson (11 points) and senior Sienna West (five rebounds) led Wausa.
Summerland broke out to a 38-15 halftime lead and the Lady Bobcats cruised to the victory.
“We just didn’t shoot the ball very well again and had too many unforced turnovers that led to a lot of runouts in the first quarter, leaving us down by 13,” Anderson said. “We did get a few threes to fall, which had been a big issue, but with turnovers and offensive rebounds, Summerland put up 20 more shots than we did.
“We have also been battling foul trouble. We are not deep enough to overcome this with two of our starters (out with fouls) and teams are killing us with the number of free throws they are shooting compared to what we are getting up,” he said.
West (10 points, four rebounds) and Dawson (nine points, four rebounds) once again set the pace for the Lady Vikings.
In the conference tournament loss to Plainview, Wausa had its best showing, but trailed 32-12 at halftime, which kept any comeback in doubt.
“We started the game off with some very costly turnovers,” Anderson said. “Plainview has good team speed and we just didn’t do enough to protect the basketball and got our pockets picked too many times that led to easy layups. After the first quarter, we settled in and made some plays. I thought our defense played very well.
“Taylor played well for us and made some key plays to get people involved. We did a nice job rebounding against a team that typically rebounds on the offensive end very well. I felt like we got better this game, but we just couldn’t overcome the hole we dug early on,” he said.
Dawson (12 points, five steals) had the top performance for Wausa.
“I feel like we take good shots and we have good games, but a lot of our shots don’t really fall in,” West said. “I feel like we have to find a way to score. We have three games that we still have (due to postponements) and we have a chance to win those games and get our record better than what it is right now. We haven’t gone on our run yet, but I still think we have time to maybe not go on a long run, but still win some.”
Wausa played in the second round of the conference tournament against No.5 seed Hartington- Newcastle on Jan. 30 and will play Winside on Jan. 31 to make up a postponed game.
“We don’t score a lot of points in a game, which hurts us because if you’re playing a team that averages 50 points a game, then it’s going to be hard to stop them if we can’t score a lot,” West said.
“I think it was good to get a break and refresh our bodies to keep playing. I also think it wasn’t the best because we just didn’t practice two weeks. We had to get back into the swing of things.
“Now we just have to get back into everything again and get practices going and recondition ourselves because two weeks off is a long time to just not do anything.”
