The Evanston High School girls' basketball team came away with a 48-35 win on Friday night against Natrona, but suffered a 60-55 loss to Kelly Walsh on Saturday afternoon.
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EVANSTON — It wasn’t exactly how the Evanston High School girls’ basketball team wanted its two-game conference slate to turn out over the weekend.
The Lady Red Devils came away with a 48-35 win on Friday night against Natrona, but suffered a 60-55 loss to Kelly Walsh on Saturday afternoon.
Evanston, ranked fourth in Class 4A, is now 11-4 overall and 3-1 in the 4A West. The Lady Red Devils return to action at 6 p.m. Friday at home with another conference game against Jackson.
Kelly Walsh, ranked fifth in 4A, improved to 10-4 and 3-0 in conference play.
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy. Of course, you want to win all of your conference games at home,” Evanston coach Jeremy Fessler said. “It’s so important in the conference schedule.”
Evanston senior Emmery Wagstaff scored a team-high 15 points. Tayler Groll was second on the team in scoring with nine points.
Kelly Walsh senior Hallie Jimenez scored a game-high 16 points. Madison Vinich finished with 13 points and Hadley Lloyd added 10 points to lead the Lady Trojans, who knocked down six 3-pointers in the contest.
“Kelly Walsh shot really well from the 3-point line today,” Wagstaff said. “We needed to jump out on them sooner.”
Evanston faced a 53-44 deficit with 2:30 to play, but the Lady Red Devils responded with an 11-4 run that was capped by a 3-pointer by Wagstaff to make it 57-53 with 40 seconds remaining.
After getting a defensive stop, Evanston missed a shot on its next possession and Kelly Walsh was able to seal the game from the free-throw line.
“I think defense was the biggest difference in the game,” Evanston senior Megan Fisher said. “We played well, but we didn’t play as well as they did. They hit a lot of outside shots and we didn’t.”
The Lady Red Devils came out strong, jumping out to a 9-4 first-quarter lead, but some turnovers down the stretch cost Evanston and Kelly Walsh came out of the quarter with a 12-11 lead.
Both teams scored 14 points in the second quarter as the Lady Trojans went into the break with a 26-25 advantage.
Evanston took a 29-26 lead following a jumper by Fisher and a fast-break layup by Wagstaff with 6:44 to play in the third.
Kelly Walsh responded with an 11-4 run to take a 40-33 lead with 1:53 to play in the third, and the Lady Trojans led the rest of the way.
“They shot well, there’s no doubt,” Fessler said. “Kelly Walsh played really well today. We’ll use this as a learning experience for upcoming weeks. We have to go hard in practice if we want to beat these better teams.”
Evanston 48, Natrona 35
The Evanston Lady Red Devils claimed a 48-35 win against Natrona on Friday in a Class 4A West matchup in Evanston.
It was the first time since 2012 that Evanston beat Natrona.
Hailey Barker led Evanston with 13 points. Emmery Wagstaff faced a box-and-one defense throughout the contest, but still finished with 11 points for the Lady Red Devils.
Evanston led 10-8 after the first quarter, 20-15 at halftime, and took a 34-26 advantage into the final period.
Natrona fell to 6-7 overall and 0-2 in conference play.
