Lady Red Devil basketball jumps out to 2-1 season start

Mark Madia, Herald Sports Editor
Posted 12/11/18

Girls' basketball starts season 2-1

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Lady Red Devil basketball jumps out to 2-1 season start

Posted

EVANSTON — Despite cold shooting, the Lady Red Devils came away with a 2-1 record from the Casper Invitational tournament this past Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 6-8.

Evanston notched victories over Sheridan, 41-27, and Natrona County, 38-34, before falling to fourth-ranked Kelly Walsh, 44-17, on Saturday.

The Lady Red Devils only shot 30, 20 and 17 percent, respectively, from the field as a team during the three-day tourney.

“We were asking ourselves as coaches, ‘When is the last time a team shot 20 percent and won?’” head coach Jeremy Fessler told the Herald.

“We were asking the same thing the night before when we shot 30 percent from the field,” he added.

Kori Deru and Ajahonna Archuleta led the way for Evanston, with both seniors scoring in double-digits — Deru finished with 12 points and Archuleta had 10. Zocia Nowakowski chipped in six, while Natalie Robbins and Kaelyn Hiatt each contributed four. Hanna Sowers added three and Taryn Wagstaff had a bucket for Evanston, who jumped out to an 8-5 lead in the first quarter and never looked back.

Archuleta dominated in the game against the Fillies of Natrona County with a game-high 17. Deru added nine points, Robbins contributed four, Hiatt had three and Sowers finished with two points. Wagstaff, Nowakowski and Sierra Burleigh all added a single point to the tally in a game in which Evanston had to come from behind. The Lady Red Devils trailed by a bucket with one quarter complete, 9-7, and pulled within one at intermission, 18-17, but outscored Natrona County 21-15 in the second half for the 38-33 victory.

Nobody scored much on Saturday, as Evanston squared off with the other Casper school in the 44-17 loss to Kelly Walsh. Archuleta again showed the way with six points, followed by Wagstaff with four. Deru, Hiatt and Robbins all had two points and Sowers finished with one point.

Evanston fell behind 12-4 with quarter number one in the books but then did not score for 13 minutes. They had no points in the second quarter and just a deuce in the the third.

Coach Fessler will emphasize enhancing a press-break during this week’s shortened practice schedule, along with improvement on offense against a zone defense and just overall shooting for his squad. Evanston struggled against the length of the Kelly Walsh girls who pressed Evanston the entire game. The Lady Red Devils were not able to reciprocate and set up their own full-court press or a variation thereof, only scoring g 17 points. Kelly Walsh utilized its size to force a lot of turnovers which led to easy buckets. In addition, due to their offensive prowess from last season, Evanston did not encounter much zone defense throughout the season, so playing against the zone Kelly Walsh administered was somewhat of a foreign concept for this year’s team, according to the coach.

The Lady Red Devils will open the Flaming Gorge Classic with the second-ranked team in Class 3A, the Lady Outlaws of Rawlins, at 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 13. They will then battle Riverton at 2:40 p.m. on Friday and will close out against Pinedale, a team that scored 71 points against Lovell last Friday, at 11:20 a.m. on Saturday. All of the Lady Red Devils’ games will be played at Lincoln Middle School Gym in Green River.