LONGMONT — Skyline girls basketball head coach Tina Skidmore was hoping on Saturday night that the loss sustained by Longmont on Friday would carry over into their non-league outing at the Falcons’ gym.
Nope, not this Longmont team.
The Trojans were all-out irked regarding the lopsided loss to Broomfield the night before, and a strong second half propelled Longmont to a 66-42 victory over the Falcons.
It wasn’t pretty at times, and in fact Longmont (15-4) had a somewhat lackadaisical second quarter with eight turnovers (the Trojans had just 16 for the game). But the pressure defense LHS implemented coming out of the locker room in the third quarter bucked the Falcons’ confidence, and the visitors capitalized.
“I think since Broomfield came out so hard at us, that motivated us to come our hard against (Skyline), and it just left a bad taste in our mouth,” said Kathryn Schell, who scored 19 points as one of three double-digit scorers. “We wanted to get right back with another win and start another streak like we were on before.”
Skyline (6-13) was prepared to trade jabs and they were hanging in the game during the first half, led by Naomi Barron hitting some tough baskets. Her 10 points by halftime helped SHS counter some of the triple-threat posed by Kathryn and Anna Schell as well as Sydney Wetterstrom.
When Kaylee Spencer knocked down a 3-pointer just 20 seconds into the third quarter, the Falcons saw themselves down just 28-22. That only seemed to fire up the ladies in blue.
Longmont managed to hoist up 20 shots in the third quarter —- helped along by some offensive rebounds and eight Skyline turnovers —- and it added up to a 23-12 margin in the frame to give the Trojans a 20-point advantage.
“Our girls did a lot of things that we’ve been working on but had yet to show in a game, so that was good for us,” Skidmore said. “We had a pretty strong post showing in the first half, definitely, but to sustain it for a whole game was a little bit harder for us.”
“We knew in the third quarter that we needed to get the job done a little more,” Kathryn Schell said. “We started to move the ball better, and were getting a lot of assists.
“We were just focused on pressuring their guards a lot. If Barron was going to score, she was going to no matter what. We wanted to pressure their guards because they didn’t have the ballhandling.”
Longmont did lead from wire-to-wire, and once again Wetterstrom posted huge numbers. She had 21 points and 16 rebounds, and the contingent of girls down low kept Skyline from making good on its chances inside.
Anna Schell ended up with 12 points.
Barron finished with 19 points to lead the Falcons.
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Longmont 66, Skyline 42
At Skyline H.S.
LONGMONT (15-4)
Sam Larson 1 2-2 4, Sydney Wetterstrom 7 7-13 21, Madi Gaibler 1 0-0 2, Alexis Cox 1 0-0 2, Kathryn Schell 8 0-0 19, Anna Schell 5 1-2 12, Sarah McKee 2 2-2 6. Totals 25 12-19 66.
SKYLINE (6-13)
Leah Osborn 0 0-2 0, Naomi Barron 8 3-4 19, Kaylee Spencer 4 0-1 10, Alyssa Steed 3 1-2 7, Brianna Robison 3 0-0 6. Totals 18 4-9 42.
Score by quarters:
Longmont 14 14 23 15 — 66
Skyline 8 11 12 11 — 42
3-point field goals — Longmont (4): K. Schell 3, A. Schell; Skyline (2): Spencer 2.
