That changed quickly in BCLUW’s home game against GMG at the Conrad Roundhouse on Saturday afternoon, as Hughes went for 13 points in the first quarter alone and finished with 18 total as the Comets ran away with a 59-41 win over the Wolverines.

Hughes started her day by sinking her first shot, a 3-pointer, and from there on she said her trust in her shot only grew.

“With that first three I was feeling pretty confident in my shooting, I’ve been working on my form in practice, so once the first one went in I was feeling confident throughout the first half,” Hughes, who finished 6-for-12 from the floor and 4-for-5 from deep, said. “I feel like it kind of got us going and pumped up to keep going throughout the game.”

After Hughes made her first shot, Bailey Ashton followed with a three of her own to put the Comets (7-7) up 6-2 in just under a minute, and BCLUW head coach David Lee said it was no accident that his girls were hitting their marks.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“We started shooting the ball well, on Tuesday night [against South Hardin] we couldn’t get anything going to start with,” Lee said. “I think it was because we made the extra pass tonight, Olivia got some shots but it was all on the second touch, she didn’t shoot the first touch. We would turn the ball back and skip it to her and she was facing the hole and had a good look. We were like that a lot against their zone, I thought we were really patient and not just coming down to take the first open shot. We always gave it a chance to go inside then got it back out and were facing the hole, I thought we really moved the ball well in the first half.”

As for his senior doubling her season scoring total and going 4-for-5 from behind the arc, Lee said he’s always known Hughes had that scoring ability in her.

“She has struggled all year and she has had a couple games where she’s shot well, but nothing where she could get a couple in a row to go,” Lee said. “Once she got the feel of it, she shoots the ball well and she just needs to have a little confidence. She waited to get better looks tonight and wasn’t anxious to get it right away, and once she got going she really found the open space and caught and shot.”

By halftime, the BCLUW lead had grown to 39-17 and it seemed the Wolverines (7-6) wouldn’t find a way to dig themselves out of the hole. GMG head coach Justin Hornberg said he wasn’t really even worried about the deficit, he just wanted his girls to come out and compete harder than they did in the first half.

“The message at halftime was to play in four-minute spurts, I wasn’t sure what the score was but I knew it was anywhere between 18-25,” Hornberg said. “We said ‘you’ve got to win each quarter by six’ and obviously we didn’t do that in the third quarter but the fourth was a different story. We got it down to 13 and if any of our threes would have fallen we could have gone into the full-foul mode and extend the game out. Unfortunately they didn’t, but the defensive intensity coming out was good.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

One girl heard Hornberg’s message loud and clear, as Wolverine senior Kelsey Vaverka shot out of halftime like her hair was on fire. After going scoreless in the first half, Vaverka connected on her first two shots of the third quarter from behind the 3-point line on her way to going for 10 points in the frame. Vaverka matched Hughes with a game-high 18 points, all in the second half, and Hornberg said he was proud of how she played.

“She has been consistent all year long in her effort, one thing you never have to ask Kelsey to give you is effort,” Hornberg said. “When her shot is going is when she can be especially difficult to guard. When she can be a 3-point shooter as well as get to the basket like she did tonight, she is a tough guard for anybody. I am proud of the way she came out because once she got going it got everybody else interested and excited.”

Madi Ubben followed Hughes with 13 points for BCLUW, and Bailey Ashton chipped in 11. Ubben also had a double-double with 10 rebounds, and though her shot didn’t fall like usual Lee said it was a good game for his center considering she missed the entire winter break due to a medical issue.

“She hasn’t played for a month, she missed everything at Christmas and missed the Gladbrook-Reinbeck game, so this was really only her first full game back because she didn’t even start the South Hardin game,” Lee said. “This was her first chance at getting back in, and she was a little anxious to get back to play and too excited, and they let it get physical in the lane. That was good, it was good for her to work through that and she missed two or three cheap ones in there, but she passed the ball well and rebounded well, maybe better than what she normally does.”

Mable Dieleman was the only other Wolverine 10 points, and Vaverka led the team in rebounding with nine boards. GMG had 32 total turnovers in the game, with Comet senior Katie Thompson recording an impressive eight steals, and Lee said as a whole the defense has come along.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“There’s no doubt that we are getting better at defense. We change defenses pretty much with our change of personnel, so we have something like four different defensive packages and it depends on who’s in the ballgame on what we are going to do,” he said. “Since Madison is back we just started to work on that real well, we were scrambling over vacation and we’ve had a couple days now where we can really work on those things and the kids are starting to believe in that and believe if they help each other we maybe get an easy basket or a good shot, and that’s what defense will do for you.”

BCLUW will try to extend its current three-game winning streak on Monday when it hosts Class 1A No. 11 Colo-NESCO in Conrad, while GMG next faces Collins-Maxwell on Tuesday while looking to end a three-game losing streak.

BCLUW 59, GMG 41

At Conrad

GMG (7-6) — Madi Krull 0 0-0 0, Zoe Duncan 3 0-0 6, Mable Dieleman 3 3-4 10, Tory Novotny 0 0-0 0, Kelsey Vaverka 6 3-3 18, Belle Duncan 1 0-0 2, Emily Vaughn 1 1-6 4, Jordan Yilek 0 1-3 1. TOTALS 14 8-16 41.

BCLUW (7-7) — Katie Thompson 1 0-2 2, Olivia Hughes 6 2-2 18, Bailey Ashton 5 0-0 11, Easton Swanson 0 0-0 0, Madi Ubben 6 1-4 13, Payton Pekarek 3 0-1 6, Jade Hammers 0 0-0 0, Allison Engle 3 0-0 6, Lili Wilson 0 0-0 0, Jaelyn Allen 1 0-2 3. TOTALS — 25 3-11 59.

GMG 7 10 14 10 — 41

BCLUW 24 15 8 12 — 59

3-Point Goals–GMG 5 (Vaverka 3, Dieleman, Vaughn), BCLUW 6 (Hughes 4, Ashton, Allen). Total Fouls–GMG 14, BCLUW 16. Fouled Out–Yilek.