Superior girls begin season

The Superior Lady Cats had a tough opening schedule this weekend, but their Coach Jeff Schultz said last week that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We’re going to get a real look of where our team is at,” Schultz said.

The girls started out with a game against Charlo on Friday and they nearly clenched a victory. They lost by a mere five points, 27-32.

The girls left the first quarter behind, 6-10, but bounced back in the second quarter to take hold of the lead, 15-14. The third quarter was rough on the girls and probably cost them the game when they failed to score against their opponent. They came back in the fourth to score 12 points, and would have possibly won had they held off Charlo and scored an additional point.

“The girls played exceptionally hard and left it all out there on court,” Schultz said. “They did a great job with our defensive schemes and ran schemes very well on defense for first game.”

Schultz described the game as a “defensive battle.”

“We tried a couple of different defensives methods to try and mess with their offense,” Schultz. “But our girls did an excellent job at applying pressure.”

The girls struggled offensively, but that was due in part to Charlo’s defense.

“You never go into a game against Charlo expecting to run a great offense because Charlo does so well defensively,” Schultz said.

The girls struggled to run some of their offenses correctly. Shooting also hurt the girls. They shot 14 percent from the floor and eight out of 27 free throws made it into the basket.

Kaitlynn Koke led the Lady Cats with 10 points, followed by Cary Chamberlain who managed seven points for the team.

The girls found themselves in another action-packed, fast paced game on Saturday with a matchup against St. Ignatius. The girls lost 54-63. Koke had a game high of 25 points to lead Superior.

“They’re a tall big team and they shoot well,” Schultz said. “In the first half, we came out very sluggish and it pretty much cost us the game. We came out slow on defense.”

The girls were shooting better on Saturday. They shot 54 percent on free throws compared to 27 percent on Friday.

“We came out and did an excellent job in the second half. The things that cost us were the turnovers and shooting from the floor,” Schultz said. “We couldn’t hit the shots from the outside. But Koke had a great game with a career high. Cary was behind her with 12 and Nicole Stroot shot ten.”

Schultz said that overall the girls played hard during opening weekend.

“Three things we’ve been focusing on is out hustle, speed and being the ultimate competitor,” Schultz said, “and for the most part I felt like we did that. We’re going to be smaller than a lot of people and so I’m going to ask a girl who is five-seven to guard a six foot player and dominate.”

The season couldn’t have come quickly enough for the girls. Despite playing a full season over the summer, Schultz said if felt like it took forever for the season to finally roll around.

“It feels like it took forever for the season to get here,” he said.

With drills in place to help the players hone their skills, practice started on Nov. 22. Schultz said that the big goal overall is to work as a team this season.

Schultz has three seniors on the team this year, with six juniors, four sophomores and four freshmen.

“We have a few strengths with the speed. We’re very fast, we have good shooters and we’re good finishers under the hoop,” Schultz said. “With rebounding, we’re going to have to box out because we’re not going to win the who’s tallest game.”

Schultz said that they are going to keep the offensive strategies pretty simple and be prepared for whatever defense the other teams throw at them. On offense, Schultz said that he wants to see a lot of movement.

“We want to try and spice it up and find out what weaknesses the other teams have and exploit that and hit them,” Schultz said.

While Schultz said you always want to win, the big goal for the team is to improve every single time they are out and to have fun.

“You always want to win, but we want to improve every single game. My goal is to push them harder than they thought they could go,” Schultz said.

The girls will play Darby on Friday. Schultz said that they are a taller team and have most of their girls returning.

“It’s a conference game so it’s a big game for us. Things are tight and every game counts. Both teams know each other pretty well it will just come down to “who doesn’t make the most mistakes.”