Huskies down Wolves

It took a while for both teams to get warmed up on a chilly night in Highland on Thursday night.

After weather canceling practices for the past five days, the Highland girls? basketball team didn?t get off to the start it wanted to, but was able to use its defense to take down Winfield-Mt. Union 47-37.

Despite the win, Huskies head coach Jody Fink said his team, who improved its record to 8-2, has some work to do after its first game back from break.

?I don?t think we got any rust off,? Fink said. ?Not touching a ball for five days and not getting together and doing anything, you could tell we were on the short end of it. We were trying to  depend on our defense, but we kept turning the ball over at inopportune times. Normally, that?s not a big deal, but we haven?t shot for a while, so we weren?t on our game.?

Highland was led by junior Cheyanne Adamson?s 14 points, and senior Chelsey Lampe?s 13 points and nine rebounds in the contest. As a team, the Huskies shot 30 percent.

Winfield-Mt. Union (0-12) was led by senior Karlie Wade?s 14 points in the game, which had a lot of positives according to Wolves? head coach Mitch Wachs.

?We are growing,? Wachs said. ?The first time we played Highland we had them down seven points at halftime, then we lost by 20. We lost our post player, Nicole Escher, to a torn ACL and now we have all freshmen post players. We keep getting better, we just don?t have a win to show for it. The focus was more complete for 32 minutes than it ever has been, so that?s what we are going to take away from it.?

With freshmen post players, WMU held up with a sizeable Highland team in the rebounding statistic, tying for the game at 38 apiece, something the Huskies know they want to improve.

?We struggled in rebounding tonight, but it was something that we knew we needed to focus on,? Highland senior Chelsey Lampe said. ?We do really well with it in other games, so we just need to focus back on that.?

Highland and Winfield struggled from the floor early in the game, but the Huskies used a pair of 6-0 runs to take a 13-6 run early in the second quarter.

A last second shot before halftime helped Winfield claw back into the game, closing the deficit to 18-14.

?We did a great job to hang in there,? Wachs said. ?We got into halftime down four and we?ve led six out of the last seven ball games at halftime and haven?t got a win. Four minutes into the second half there was no change, still down four. We missed a couple easy buckets in the fourth quarter that we can?t miss.?

After a tight first four minutes of the second half, Winfield kept things tight, but Highland found a couple small runs to take a nine-point lead going into the fourth, and didn?t look back to complete the victory.

?It?s a big one,? Fink said. ?We thought we should be able to do that tonight, but when you don?t have practice, it becomes more of a coin flip. We gave up a couple easy buckets, especially in that first half. (Winfield) was on the attack more than we were, and that has to change in the next couple days.?

Winfield will take on Pekin for its next game, while Highland will face Louisa-Muscatine. Both games will tip off on Tuesday.