HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL
Western Athletic Conference
At Dodge City
Friday
GIRLS
No. 6 Dodge City High School 53,
Great Bend 35
GREAT BEND (3-6, 2-1)
Brandi Schneider 0 0-0 0, Emily Cruse 0 0-0 0, Alexis Brack 2 4-5 9, Kelsey Crosby 0 0-0 0, Katelyn Henning 0 0-0 0, Olivia Basye 0 0-0 0, Liz Kutina 0 3-4 3, Kaitlee Spray 0 0-1 0, Jennifer Allende 0-0 0-0 0, Taycee Bunn 2 1-2 6, Kalie LeShore 3 0-0 6, Jordan Haney 1 3-4 5. Totals 10-39 13-19 35.
DODGE CITY (5-1, 1-0)
Ashley Stephenson 3 0-0 7, Summer Wilson 0 0-0 0, Brenna Briggs 2 0-1 4, Alexis Sanchez 0-0 0-0 0, Kesha Buckner 3 4-7 10, A’zlynn Thompson 9 0-2 18, Teghan Pencis 5 2-5 12, Sophie Shaull 1 0-0 2, Ciera Lampe 0 0-0 0, Katrina Roenfeldt 0 0-0 0. Totals 23-43 6-15 53.
Great Bend 8 13 10 4 — 35
Dodge City 8 18 13 14 — 53
Three-point goals — Great Bend 2 (Brack 1, Bunn 1); Dodge City 1 (Stephenson 1).
BY MACK McCLURE
mmcclure@gbtribune.com
DODGE CITY — When the numerous turnovers subsided in the second half on Friday night, Great Bend High School somehow found itself in the game with Dodge City.
Despite their miscues, Great Bend, trailed the defending Western Athletic Conference champions only 26-21 at halftime and 39-31 after three quarters.
But the dam finally broke in the final period, as the Red Demons went on to post a 53-35 victory to improve to 6-1 overall and 2-0 in conference play. Great Bend drops to 3-6, 2-1.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Dodge City with a lot of our turnovers,” Great Bend head coach Jason Tatkenhorst said. “They’re very athletic and every pass that we made and every dribble we made was contested.
“For three quarters we still hung around and in the fourth quarter, I really felt like their pressure got to us.”
In a game where 58 turnovers were committed — 31 by Great Bend and 23 by Dodge City, the Lady Panthers were still able to stay in the hunt three-fourths of the way.
Dodge City post player A’zlynn Thompson buried 8 of 10 field goals and finished with a game- and season-high 18 points to go along with her game-high nine rebounds. Forward Teghan Pencis added a career-high 12 points for the Demons.
Lexie Brack led Great Bend with nine points. Taycee Bunn and Kalie LeShore scored six apiece for the Lady Panthers, who shot only 25.6 percent from the field (10 for 39) and committed 21 turnovers by halftime.
On the flip side, Dodge City made 53.5 percent of its shots (23 for 43), and had 14 turnovers by halftime.
The real killer for Great Bend was an eight-minute scoring drought — running from the final two minutes of the third quarter until only a couple minutes remained.
“You’re not going to win games and you’re not going to win games playing Dodge City having that long of a stretch without scoring,” Tatkenhorst said. “If we were doing anything right, I think we were doing a lot of things wrong in the first half and we were keeping them from making big runs.
“All of a sudden, we hit some big baskets from a lot of girls and we really felt pretty decent about ourselves at halftime … we didn’t step up in the fourth quarter.”
Great Bend returns to action on Tuesday, when the Lady Panthers host Larned in non-conference play at Panther Fieldhouse.
