Okoboji lost a tough Siouxland Conference battle at West Lyon Friday night, 68-63. Both teams struggled to score early, but Emily Terwee got West Lyon going with a couple early buckets as they claimed an 8-1 lead midway through the first quarter. That lead would grow to 16-3 at the end of the quarter as Okoboji continued to struggle with turnovers and missed free throws. The Pioneers, however would respond in the second quarter behind hot shooting from Carly Carstens as they trimmed the lead to 32-24 at the half. The game remained close in the third quarter, with Okoboji using a 14-9 run to pull within 45-44 entering the final stanza. The teams traded baskets for most of the fourth quarter, with West Lyon opening a 63-54 lead with back to back three pointers, but the Pioneers would not go away, and cut the lead to 63-60 before West Lyon would put the game away at the free throw line and pull out the contested victory. Okoboji was led by Carly Carstens, who had 20 points to go along with 4 assists; Lynnae Abrahamson added 14 points and Ava Packebush chipped in with 12 points. West Lyon was led by Emily Terwee’s 24 points and also got double digits from Randy Childress with 11, while Evy Knoblock and Gianna Klarenbeek each added 10 points. Okoboji falls to 0-3 on the season while West Lyon improves to 2-0.
Quotes from John Adams
I told the girls after the game that I was extremely proud of them and how they responded to the adversity we faced in the first quarter where we didn’t play very well, which West Lyon had a huge part of that with their defense. Carly did a great job of keeping us in the game in the second quarter, and then in the second half our team really got into an offensive groove. While we are disappointed that we didn’t pick up the win, I loved how hard we competed, and that was a fun game with two teams continuing to trade big shots in the second half. We’ll get to work to fix some of our rebounding issues, but I am very excited about where this team is heading and the improvement we are showing.
