The Big Sandy girls returned to their home floor Friday night coming off their best offensive performance of the season in the friendly confines.
Unfortunately, matched with the Turner Tornadoes, ranked fourth in the state in Class C by 406MTSports.com and blemished only by a loss to No. 1-ranked Fort Benton, the Pioneers produced their lowest output of the season in their latest home outing.
Big Sandy fell to 0-6 on the year as the towering Tornadoes, paced by 20 points from 6-feet, 1-inch tall senior Shyan Krass and another 17 from 5-9 sophomore Dakota Krass, prevailed in a 52-7 rout.
While the scoreboard has been unkind to the Pioneers all year, there have been signs of progress in the team’s effort since the 2021 season tipped off. That includes breaking full-court presses and traps, deflecting passes and swiping steals, plus making more of opportunities at the free-throw line. Pioneers coach Pete Jerrel found himself as frustrated as anyone that Friday’s game seemed to indicate a step back in the squad’s improvement.
“We had a tough row of it tonight. I don’t know why we were forgetting everything,” Jerrel said. “We had been making some progress and today … we didn’t come out with our (best) effort. We’re going to need to figure out this week what went wrong here.”
Perhaps most puzzling, Jerrel said, was the Pioneers’ inability to break out of the same 1-2-2 press they employ themselves and see routinely in practice. The Tornadoes feasted on errant passes and when Big Sandy did get the ball across halfcourt, they struggled to get good looks.
“We couldn’t find anything to go (in),” Jerrel said. “Angie (Sant) made some nice offensive rebounds and we just couldn’t seem to get them to go back in, which makes it a tough go.”
The Pioneers’ single point in the first half came during a trip to the foul line for Eva Wagoner after 5 minutes, 19 seconds of game time had expired and Turner had built a 15-0 lead.
Even the Pioneers’ free-throw shooting, a relative strength in limited opportunities this season, suffered in the dismal first half. Big Sandy connected on just the one of eight attempts from the charity stripe.
Turner stretched their lead to 24-1 at the end of the first quarter and while the lid remained on the basket for Big Sandy, the defense held stronger against mostly the Tornadoes’ reserves. That dialed back the onslaught as Turner added just seven more points to its total before halftime. Mattie Gasvoda gathered up a crucial steal and Jaycee Worrall and Madison Terry jointly tied up Tornadoes’ ball-handler Meridian King-Snider while the possession arrow favored Big Sandy to provide defensive highlights.
The long-awaited shot sank from the floor finally came 37 seconds into the fourth quarter as Amy Gasvoda cashed in a 17-footer on the baseline. Lainey Terry followed it up with a runner in the lane. Only a steal-and-score from Turner’s Hannah Richman interrupted what became a 6-2 run. A 17-footer splashed from the free-throw line extended, again launched by Lainey Terry, capped the late outburst.
“We went with a smaller lineup the last quarter and a half, just trying to find something, find some momentum and (beat) that press,” Jerrel said.
The Pioneers’ scheduled Saturday visit to Hays had to be called off after a Thunderbird athlete tested positive for COVID-19, the first matchup wiped from the slate by the pandemic this season.
A road game at Fort Benton was slated for Tuesday, after press time.
“We have to let this one go and get ready for (the Longhorns),” Jerrel said. “We know it doesn’t get any easier.”
Big Sandy returns to action Friday in Chester and plays at home Saturday against Chinook, with varsity tipoff at 6 p.m.
