Lady Wolves lose two at home to Haines

The girls varsity basketball team lost twice at home to Haines on Thursday and Friday, Feb. 1-2.

The Lady Bears beat the Lady Wolves in a tight game on Thursday, 46-39, and then Haines came back even harder the second night, soundly defeating Wrangell 61-43.

Lady Wolves head coach Christina Good felt her team had their best game of the season on Thursday. "I felt like they really played well as a team," she said. "They really had that chemistry as a team and worked really hard at both ends for rebounds, offensively and defensively, and they put up a lot of really good shots. It was just a very clean game."

"We just didn't get those shots to fall," she added.

However, Good noted that the following night was much different. They didn't have the rhythm from the first game, coming out flat. They looked like a completely different team. "Friday night ... it wasn't as clean. It was just really slow. The girls just seemed confused, didn't know what to do."

She also admitted her players had too many turnovers, upon which Haines was quick to capitalize. "That's what killed us, our turnovers," she said. "Our passing was not very good. We did some good things. We had a couple of really good plays here and there, but overall turnovers are what got us."

The coach observed that the players have yet to find their footing. "We are a young team," she said. "We have a girl on the team that's never played. ... Some girls haven't played in, like, two years. So, our talent pool and the levels are just so drastically different. We're trying to get a good group in there that can just play well together."

In the first game, the top scorer was freshman Alana Harrison with 20 points, followed by junior Aubrey Wynne with 8 points. On Friday, Harrison was once again the team's top scorer with 12 points, followed closely by senior Kayla Meissner with 11 points.

While Good said her team was missing the speed of freshman guard Hailey Cook, who's on vacation, she had praise for junior Addy Andrews. "She's just a very good hustler. She brings the tempo up for us."

The Lady Wolves will next host Metlakatla on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 9-10. Despite their formidable talent, Good believes the key to overcoming the MissChiefs in a rematch is shutting down the effectiveness of several of their key players. "We have to play our game and we can't get sucked up in theirs."