Lady Rustlers Ride Away From Lady Eagles

The Big Sky Eagle basketball program started the 2018 portion of their season Thursday night against the CMR Rustlers and the Lady Eagles fell to the Lady Rustlers 61-51.

The Big Sky girls went into the night looking to pick up their first win of the season after going 0-5 through December. Going into the season Coach Anderson wanted to work on being consistent and liked what she saw in December, “I thought we were consistent but we need to take care of the ball better, but we have been consistently scoring and that’s what we need to do.”

CMR brought in a young team that was struggling to find the bottom of the bucket, going 1-3 in December and where not able to make their way above 35 points in a game. The Lady Rustlers may be a young team this year but have a veteran leaders according Coach Crosby of CMR, “We have a great group of seniors that can do a variety of different things, you have to get some good seniors.”

From the get go CMR played with confidence as Kyra Willis dropped a three pointer in the opening seconds of the game. From their the Lady Rustlers held off Big Sky and only not allowing a bucket outside of a single free throw by Alyssa Gentri in the first three minutes of play. The Lady Eagles regrouped after a Coach Anderson called a timeout and at the end of the first quarter it would be tied up at 13.

After the first quarter break Coach Crosby made personnel changes and the Lady Rustlers held Big Sky scoreless for the first five minutes of the second quarter. Once again Coach Anderson would call a series of timeouts to get the girls back into the game, and Big Sky senior Julia Reikena flexed her will, dominating the boards on both ends of the court and the Lady Eagles jumped back into the game. With the help of their senior leader Big Sky went on a run and at the half CMR lead 28-24.

At the mid game break Coach Anderson made her adjustments and the Lady Eagles found themselves out shooting the Lady Rustlers 15-14 in the third quarter, and trailed 42-39. Reikena put her team on her back and controlled the rebounds and pushed the tempo of the game to help Big Sky out score CMR.

In the final quarter the Lady Rustlers played old school basketball and committed to driving the ball hard to the hoop off screens to out shot Big Sky 19-12. Due to their aggressive play CMR put the Lady Eagles into a bind with fouls forcing Mia Sandau, Alyssa Gentri, Tilynn McGreevy, and Julie Reikena to foul out in the fourth quarter.

Reikena and Zanto would lead all scorers with 16 points a piece before fouling out in the Big Sky loss. Big Sky will face the Sentinel Spartans on Saturday in a crosstown doubleheader.

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