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Comets grounded by No. 1 Spartans

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - BCLUW junior Madi Ubben, right, and senior Olivia Hughes, behind, battle with Grundy Center senior Hailey Wallis, left, for a rebound in the second half of the Comets’ 59-36 loss to the Class 2A No. 1 Spartans on Saturday. Wallis had 19 points and seven steals to lead the Spartans, while Ubben had six points and a team-high six rebounds.

GRUNDY CENTER — At halftime it seemed the BCLUW girls basketball team was in for another 30-plus-point loss to Grundy Center on Monday, as the Comets trailed the Class 2A No. 1 Spartans 43-15 after the first 16 minutes.

In the third quarter BCLUW came out with a different mindset, however, and the Comets slowed down the game and waited for their shot, which allowed them to pull the game closer than the halftime score, though Grundy Center still remained undefeated in NICL West Division play with a 59-36 victory.

BCLUW girls head coach David Lee said it’s always a tough matchup when they travel to play the Spartans, but for some reason his girls always struggle more against them compared to other top teams.

“It’s hard to put your finger on it, they are so good, but we have done some things where we can negate some of that, we just couldn’t tonight because we couldn’t execute, and then we couldn’t make the shots,” Lee said. “If you are going to play with people like this you have to do both of those things, you have to execute the game and make some baskets.”

The first quarter was a rough start for the Comets (7-9, 4-4) as the Spartans (14-0, 9-0) muscled their way through the lane for easy baskets and rebounds to take a 21-10 lead.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - BCLUW senior Bailey Ashton, right, attempts a shot over Grundy Center defenders Sarah Lindeman (30) and Cora Saak during the first quarter of the Comets’ 59-36 loss to the Spartans in Grundy Center on Saturday.

Lee said Grundy Center was able to turn offense into defense with their zone pressure, which led to some turnovers for his team, and the BCLUW girls weren’t able to return the favor.

“We just couldn’t get anything to happen where we could score and get some pressure on, because we like to play pressure too but just like them we can’t do it until the ball goes in the hole,” Lee said. “The first half was a thing where you could say we didn’t execute right because we had all those turnovers after we had broken the press trying to get it to people for good shots, and then we didn’t make shots.”

Spartans head coach Matt Lindeman said though his girls have yet to lose this season, they have shown improvement every time they’ve stepped onto the court.

“As a coach I don’t know if you are ever really satisfied, but we feel like we are continuing to pick up momentum and continuing to improve,” Lindeman said. “I thought our execution at different times tonight in the first half was pretty good, both offensively and what we wanted to do defensively. We wanted to follow through on the gameplans and the girls are doing a good job that way.”

Hailey Wallis was unstoppable for Grundy Center when she wanted to be. She had 16 points by halftime, 11 of which came in the second quarter, and she finished with a team-high 19 points and five steals.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

While Wallis was running the offense and knocking down five 3-pointers from the outside, it was the inside duo of Brooke Flater and Kylie Willis that truly did the bulk of the damage for the Spartans.

Flater had 14 points and nine rebounds and Willis finished with 10 points and seven boards, and their combined 16 rebounds were just six shy of the Comets’ 22 total boards.

“What we are able to do offensively with those two only helps the outside game,” Lindeman said of his front court tandem. “We want to be able to have as many threats as possible when we are going to play against some top-notch teams. They have worked together for a long time, you can tell the relationship that they have and as well as the rest of our kids, they know each other pretty well.”

Katie Thompson led BCLUW with eight points, while Bailey Ashton, Madi Ubben and Jaelyn Allen all had six.

All of Ubben’s points came in the second half, where the Comets actually outscored the Spartans 21-16, and Lee said his team’s general execution was much better in the final two frames.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“We played just as hard on defense in the first half as we did the second half, it’s just easier when you make a shot once in a while to play defense,” he said. “I think we made the extra pass, even though we maybe passed up some looks I think we went to another place to get a look and I think we got a couple baskets inside and made some putbacks inside, which helped a little bit. They weren’t playing near as tenacious as they were in the first half, which maybe let us do some things, but when they went to a zone I thought we really hurt them and they went right back to the man pretty quick. That was pretty positive to see, when we really had the open look we were able to do something with it.”

After coming back from the winter break at 3-0, BCLUW has now lost its last two games to ranked opponents in Colo-NESCO and Grundy Center. Lee said he has seen quite a bit of improvement from his girls in the last few weeks, but that has to show up on the court against the tough opponents.

“We have been playing so well that I think we are to the point where we can play the good people better,” he said. “I told the kids we are ready to do that, and at some point we have to take that step, go to the next level and make the shots and the rebounds and do all of that, and then it will happen.”

The Comets get a chance to nip a ranked opponent on Tuesday when they travel to Ackley to face Class 1A No. 9 AGWSR, starting at 6:15 p.m.

Grundy Center 59, BCLUW 36

At Grundy Center

BCLUW (7-9, 4-4) — Katie Thompson 3 0-0 8, Olivia Hughes 0 0-0 0, Bailey Ashton 3 0-0 6, Easton Swanson 1 0-0 3, Madi Ubben 2 2-6 6, Payton Pekarek 1 0-0 2, Allison Engle 1 0-0 3, Lili Wilson 1 0-0 2, Jaelyn Allen 2 0-0 6. TOTALS 14 2-6 36.

GRUNDY CENTER (14-0, 9-0) — Hailey Wallis 6 2-2 19, Maddie McMartin 0 0-0 0, Sydney Mathews 0 2-3 2, Kylie Willis 2 6-7 10, Brooke Flater 7 0-0 14, Kyah Luhring 0 0-0 0, Reegan Zinkula 3 0-0 7, Shelby Rivera 0 0-0 0, Frannie Brown 0 0-0 0, Sarah Lindeman 1 0-0 3, Cora Saak 2 0-0 4, Leslie Homeister 0 0-0, Brittany Burroughs 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 21 10-12 59.

BCLUW 10 5 9 12 — 36

Grundy CTR 21 22 9 7 — 59

3-Point Goals–BCLUW 6 (Thompson 2, Allen 2, Engle, Swanson), GC 7 (Wallis 5, Zinkula, Lindeman). Total Fouls–BCLUW 10, GC 7. Fouled Out–none.

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