Hot Springs dealt first regular season loss in three years

Danielle Switalski

Hot Springs had a blowout win against Plains on Friday night, beating the Trotters 55 to 28, despite having 18 turnovers throughout the game, which is twice their normal average.

The Lady Heat also had 18 steals against Plains with Meghan Massingale and MacKenzie Wood scoring 15 points and Randi Arnold scoring 13.

The big upset for the weekend came on Saturday when Hot Springs went into a head-to-head defensive battle against Seeley Swan, the number 10 ranked team in the state. Hot Springs lost by one point, 30 to 29, after a Seeley Swan player hit a three point shot with only two minutes left in the game. Despite Hot Springs record 81 percent free throw shooting against Plains on Friday night going 17 for 21 from the line, the girls couldn’t seem to sink their shots on Saturday shooting nine for 28.

“We weren’t missing anyone, we executed on offense to get to the line like we wanted to and forced them to guarding us offensively and we put some pressure on them and drew some fouls,” said Hot Springs Head Coach Scott Wigton who was pleased with the girls offensive and defensive game on Saturday despite their loss and missed free throws.

Hot Springs played tough defense sticking with their core two-three zone, keeping the high scoring Seeley Swan at bay, only giving up 30 points. The Lady Heat only had two fouls in the second half and had to start racking them up when the clock was running out in order to send Seeley Swan to the line in the hopes of recovering the ball for a last minute basket.

“I don’t know what it was. We couldn’t hit them the whole game, we shot bad the whole game and that was the decider,” said Wigton.

Wigton was also pleased with the girls’ ability to break down Seeley Swan’s tight full court press and the same half court trap also run by Hot Springs.

“We essentially beat ourselves, I was the first person to tell them that I needed to do better and I will do better next time because I didn’t feel like I executed well enough in the last 20 seconds, I didn’t do it and it won’t happen again so that kind of put them at ease,” said Wigton.

Despite the tough loss, the Lady Heat walked away from the game knowing they should have won and did not let the loss rattle their confidence. Wigton said, the close score against Seeley Swan let the girls know that they are legitimate team as they put up a tough fight against a high-ranking team.

“We were right there with the best of them and the kids know it,” said Wigton.

The game against Seeley Swan was also good practice for Hot Springs rivalry game coming up this Saturday against Charlo at home as both Seeley Swan and Charlo play high pressure basketball and Hot Springs is ready to face Charlo’s pressure.

Hot Springs also plays St. Regis away on Friday.

“I’ve never considered a loss a bad thing and I think we have a lot to learn from this and feel like we will benefit more from this than lose and we will walk away with a sense of understanding and of where we need to go to compete with the teams out there,” said Wigton.