Lady Wolves start conference play

The Green River Lady Wolves kicked off the conference season with a win and a loss.

On Thursday the Lady Wolves played its first home game against Evanston Lady Red Devils. Despite having the home-court advantage for their first conference game the girls lost, 42-52.

"As a team, we kind of struggled that night," head coach Rick Carroll said. "We didn't play well as a team."

The Lady Wolves struggled both offensively and defensively against Evanston.

"We probably rebounded the worst we had all season," Carroll said. "Just in general we showed a lack of confidence. We let them get away on defense."

All of those things translated into a loss for the Lady Wolves. Carroll said the Lady Wolves got close to the Lady Red Devils, but then at the end of the game, they allowed Evanston to put down a couple of big three-point shots and they didn't have enough time on the clock to recover from those points. Leading the team in the Evanston game was Taylor Stoeger with 17 points and 6 rebounds.

During the Friday home game against Jackson, the Lady Wolves dominated the Lady Broncs, winning 63-18.

"We just came out and played with confidence," Carroll said. "They are a team that's struggling a little."

With the team being so far ahead, Carroll worked on switching players around and trying different defensive plays.

"Everybody got to play in that game," he said. "It was a good experience for everyone on the team."

Carroll noticed the Lady Wolves have a tendency to play well in the second and fourth quarters, but they don't do as well in the first and fourth. That's something the team is going to need to work on. He said they need to have good starts and finishes.

Leading the team in the Jackson game was Ashlelynn Birch with 16 points and 12 rebounds, followed by Stoeger with 14 points, six rebounds, six assists and seven steals, Madelyn Heiser with 12 points and four steals and Andri Dewey with 10 points, three assists and three steals.

"Defensively we caused a lot of problems for them," Carroll said.

Monday night the Lady Wolves were back on the road to play a makeup game against Douglas, a 3A Division team, but they are undefeated in their conference.

The Lady Wolves and Douglas Bearcats matched up against each other pretty well, but the Bearcats squeaked away with the win, 57-56.

Carroll said at one point they had a nine-point lead, and the Wolves had a seven-point lead, but other than those leads the game was really pretty close. The first quarter ended with them all tied up, 11-11, and at halftime it was still tied at 26-26. At the end of the third quarter the Bearcats were up by five points.

With about 25 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Lady Wolves were up by one. One of the Bearcats went up for a shot, missing the shot, but one of the Lady Wolves' fouled her. She took two free throws and hit them both, putting them up by one, 57-56. There was 14 seconds left on the clock and the Lady Wolves made their way down the court as fast as they could.

"We didn't get a good shot," he said. "We came back and had a good fourth. We were just one point short."

Leading the team in the Douglas game was Stoeger with 12 points, eight rebounds, six steals and five assists, followed by Birch with 13 points and 13 rebounds and Dewey with 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

The team will take on their biggest rivals, the Rock Springs Lady Tigers at home on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

On Tuesday the team will host Lyman to play another makeup game.

That game starts at 5:30 p.m.