Noxon beat Troy, lose star player

Matt Unrau

With a Christmas day fading in the rearview mirror the Noxon Lady Devils are probably feeling that instead of getting presents in their stocking they got a big fat piece of coal.

Star guard for the team Cara Stettler has suffered a partially torn ACL and will be out for an unknown amount of time. The bare minimum for an injury like this is six weeks. That would put Stettler back on the court in early February right before the start of the District Tournament.

It’s a hard pill to swallow for a Noxon team that showed incredible promise in December and looked to challenge Charlo and Hot Springs for the district crown.

“She’s the go to girl. She’s really active and she makes things happen. I’m looking for someone to show up and take her place,” says Hannum. “She’s the really type of person who makes really good offensive things happen.”

Along with losing their star player the injury also knocks down the total number of girls playing basketball to 12.

“Number one, we’re just so short on bodies as it is. So that adjusts the JV team…it’s hard to juggle all of that with one less player,” says Coach Sarah Hannum.

Hannum says she will now have to be even more careful of watching the total number of quarters her players play on JV and Varsity and will look to take advantage of a rule allowing her to only play 4-minute quarters in conference JV games, therefore preserving her players’ time cards. Players that play both the JV and the Varsity games can only play a maximum of four full quarters.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding Stettler, Noxon still managed to scrap together a win against a Lady Trojan squad on their first game back from the break.

It was Stephanie Larkin who stepped up in Stettler’s absence carrying the load and gathering 14 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals. Ashley Wiltse had 8 points for Noxon.