SHS girls can’t overcome cold shooting performance

The opportunities were there Saturday night for Sidney High School’s girls basketball team, it’s just that the Lady Raiders didn’t cash in on them.

Making just 12 of 27 foul shots, Tyler Shaw’s club fell 45-39 to highly touted McCook at Cabela’s Athletic Facility.

“We haven’t shot free throws well all season,” Shaw said. “We’ve got to get ourselves in a state of mind, be in practice or whatever, to better prepare ourselves for the situations.”

Things looked quite rosy for SHS (8-3) from the opening tip. The Lady Raiders were converting their defense into instant offense, and when Cody Rowley came up with a steal and easy layup at the 3:01 mark of the first period, it was McCook that found itself on the ropes, 10-2.

Sidney’s Karissa Segelke added a layup for a 12-4 advantage at the first stop. McCook sliced into the lead midway through the second quarter at 17-15, but the hosts closed out the first half with a strong 6-1 surge, keyed by a Sarah Mahr basket, and, ironically, four of six free-throw shooting.

“We did a great job in the first half with our defense, and getting offense out of it,” Shaw said, “but this was a tale of two different halves.”

Ahead 23-16 at the break, Sidney’s foul-line meltdown began right off the bat in the third quarter, and didn’t let up.

SHS led 29-24 on a Segelke inbounds score at the 4:19 mark, and McCook began taking advantage of the foul line woes to cut the Raiders’ command to 32-30 after three periods.

Sidney scored just seven more points the rest of the way, and the Bison grabbed the lead for good on an unconventional three-point play from Megan Ruppert with 7:09 to play. Ruppert made the front end of a two-shot foul, then rebounded her missed second shot and scored to make it 35-32.

“That was how it was for us in the second half,” Shaw said. “We fouled too much and we didn’t rebound well.”

McCook gradually pulled away, and got up 41-35 late when Rachel Goltl beat Mahr on a right-side clearout.

“At that point, it’s a two-possession game, and we had to scramble a little bit,” Shaw said.

The rest of the game’s scoring came from the foul line, and McCook’s Brooklynn Trew made all four of her attempts to keep SHS at bay.

Kassidy Gillen scored a game-high 11 points for McCook, reserve guard Brenleigh Daum adding eight. Mahr and Segelke paced Sidney with nine points each.

SHS hosts Ogallala Friday, then travels to Kimball Saturday.

McCook 45, Sidney 39

McCook 4 12 14 15—45

Sidney 12 11 9 7—39

McCook (12-2): Daum 4 0-2 8, Goltl 2 3-5 7, Sughroue 2 2-3 6, Trew 0 6-7 6, Gillen 5 1-2 11, Ruppert 3 1-2 7. Totals 16 13-20 45

Sidney (8-3): Mahr 4 1-2 9, Segelke 3 3-8 9, Cole 0 5-8 5, Price 2 1-3 5, Rowley 1 0-0 2, Linneman 1 1-2 3, Heeren 2 1-4 6. Totals 13 12-27 39

3-point goals – Sidney (Heeren). Team fouls – McCook 23, Sidney 17. Fouled out – Daum, Linneman

Boys