Girls Game
Sioux Center beat Okoboji 65-36 in Milford on Tuesday night. The Warriors jumped out to a 9-2 lead before the Pioneers responded with an 11-6 run to end the quarter and trim the lead to 15-13. Sioux Center would take control of the game in the second frame with their half court trapping defense and push the lead to 31-18 at the half. The Pioneers would trim it to 31-20 but never got any closer the rest of the way as the Warriors put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring Okoboji 20-5 to take a 51-23 lead into the final frame. The fourth quarter was played pretty evenly as both teams went to their benches. Montana Wilson led Okoboji with 14 points and 8 rebounds and Carly Carstens chipped in with seven points. Willow Bleeker and Austyn Van Zee led a balanced Warrior attack with 11 points each. Okoboji falls to 5-5 on the season while Sioux Center improves to 6-3.
Comments From Okoboji Coach John Adams
Give Sioux Center credit, they played a great game and did a really good job of taking it to us. The half-court trap in the second quarter got to us and I did a poor job of having us prepared for that. We didn’t play or coach well tonight and we’ll have to learn from this one and move on. As I said, the credit goes to Sioux Center for making us uncomfortable all night and we have to figure out how to respond to that. The great part of this week is we have three games so we have the opportunity to get back on the court on Thursday.
Boys Game
The Pioneers opened up their season after the break against Sioux Center in another Siouxland conference matchup. The Pioneers got out to a good start taking a 27-17 lead. Both teams continued to score it early with a 41-33 Okoboji lead going into halftime. Both teams competed coming out of the half with the Pioneers maintaining a 55-50 lead going into the fourth quarter. The Pioneers closed the game with a 70-65 win.
The Pioneers were led by Lucas Lorenzen’s 29 points. Kaleb Peschong contributed 15, Austin Harms 9, and Aidan Dahms 8. Sioux Center was led by Cael Van Beek’s 20 points. Christian Vietor scored 19.
Comments From Okoboji Coach Ryan Stumbo
We did a really nice job playing together tonight and found some great rhythm early in the game. The ball moved well and we were able to capitalize on good looks throughout the game that helped us maintain our energy. We were proud of our poise and ability to find ways to respond to the runs Sioux Center put together. So many different guys stepped up tonight for us on both ends of the floor, and it was a great team effort. We will need to keep building off of that moving forward.