The Shadle Park Highlanders (0-6) hosted the Lakeland Hawks (4-4) for a girls’ basketball game that ended with Lakeland winning 66-27.
Shadle Park did not have a great game on either side of the ball. The Highlanders only scored seven in the first half, with Lakeland out-scoring the Highlanders’ final score with 34. Shadle Park was able to focus and scored 20 in the second half.
Landree Simon was the game’s star player for Lakeland, scoring 18 points on her own. She was backed up in the game by Lila Kiefer and Payton Sterling, each scoring 11 points.
Makenzie Fager put up 12 points against the Lakeland defense.
“Going into the game, we thought that we would win pretty easy,” junior Jersi McMurray said. “We played our plays well and were able to get through their defenses.”
Shadle Park’s defense was not up to par with Lakeland’s offense. Lakeland was able to penetrate through Shadle Park’s defense; Lakeland was too good at their plays and executed them so well that Shadle Park could not keep up.
“We were able to learn the defense that we had worked on during practice,” McMurray said.
In the second half, Shadle Park was able to put up more than double than in the first half due to Lakeland getting overconfident and losing the momentum that they had built up. They had lost a lot of self-restraint during the halftime break, allowing Shadle Park to make a move and score more.
This did not alter the course of the game, though Lakeland put up so many points in the first half that Shadle Park could not recover.
“I feel that we lost a bunch of momentum in the second half, allowing them to score,” McMurray said.
Lakeland feels that overall, they had performed well and focused on the necessary things. Lakeland’s determination and team know-how got them through this game.
“We were able to do what we needed to do and go in there and focus up on the things we needed to focus on,” McMurray said.
