Emporia High girls basketball coach Bill Nienstedt had a simple message for his team after the Lady Spartans’ sluggish 57-29 victory over Leavenworth on Tuesday night.
If EHS plays the same way against Washburn Rural on Friday, don’t expect the Lady Spartans to even be competitive.
“Coach told us he was happier with our loss on Friday to Junction City than he was with our win tonight,” Sadie Webb said. “We didn’t execute the little things, and he told us if we don’t execute on Friday, we’ll get pounded.”
The game was never really in doubt for the second-ranked Lady Spartans, who ran their record to 8-1. But EHS never seemed to get in a rhythm offensively and at times looked unfocused on defense, which allowed Leavenworth to keep the game closer than perhaps most expected.
“It was a disappointing performance,” Nienstedt said. “We weren’t sharp. We had so many possessions where three kids were doing the right things and two wouldn’t, or four would and one wouldn’t. You can’t play that way.
“Basketball is the ultimate team sport. All five kids have to be paying attention to what they’re doing, or you end up looking like we looked tonight.”
Emporia got things started slowly, missing nine of its first 14 shots in the first 7 1/2 minutes. Meanwhile, the Lady Pioneers kept things close early on, as Marlayna Garvin’s lay-in with 1 minute, 26 seconds left in the opening frame cut Emporia’s lead to 11-8.
“They were a quick team,” sophomore Lindy Arndt said. “We weren’t really playing at our tempo. They sped us up a little bit, and that caused us to not play as well had we been playing at our pace.”
EHS closed the first quarter with a 5-0 scoring flurry to make it 16-8 heading into the second quarter, but with 4 1/2 minutes remaining until halftime, Emporia still led just 16-10 after it missed its first six shots of the quarter.
Arndt then kick-started Emporia’s offense, scoring on back-to-back layups to help the Lady Spartans finally hit some sort of stride to end the half. EHS outscored Leavenworth 11-4 to end the second quarter to go into halftime ahead, 27-14.
Then, out of the break, EHS used a 9-2 run to push its advantage to 36-16, and Leavenworth would never get any closer than 18 points the rest of the way.
“We ended on a good run at the end of the second quarter,” Arndt said, “and when we came back out, we weren’t up by as much as we thought we should be, so we decided we better turn it up before things go wrong and they make a comeback.”
Arndt and Webb were the two biggest highlights of the night for the Lady Spartans, as each scored 15 points while Webb grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.
Even with the somewhat lackluster showing against Leavenworth, Webb said there was some good to be taken from the game, as the Lady Spartans won despite having an off night.
“Games like this show us that if execute what we need to do,” Webb said, “we can play with anyone in Kansas.”
With Friday’s game against fourth-ranked (Class 6A) Washburn Rural in the Lady Spartans’ sights, Nienstedt said he believed his team could put this game behind it.
“We’ll get it straightened out,” he said. “We’ve got kids who care a lot. They’re great kids, and they’ll bounce back and they’ll find a way to focus.”
Emporia girls 57, Leavenworth 29
Tuesday at EHS
Leavenworth 8 6 6 9 — 29
Emporia 16 11 15 15 — 57
Leavenworth — Moe 0-3 0-2 0, Allen 1-4 2-2 4, Palu 2-5 1-2 5, Jackson 2-6 0-0 4, Garvin 3-5 3-4 9, Davis 1-5 0-0 2, Burns 1-5 1-2 3, Foskett 0-4 2-2 2, Harper 0-2 0-0 0, Shepard 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 10-40 9-14 29.
Emporia (8-1) — Armitage 0-3 0-0 0, Webb 7-14 1-1 15, Arndt 5-8 4-6 15, Naab 2-8 0-0 4, Hileman 2-3 6-13 10, VanGundy 1-4 0-0 3, Heinrichs 1-2 3-5 5, Meza 0-2 1-2 1, Leihsing 1-1 0-0 2, Waldner 1-3 0-0 2. Totals 20-48 15-27 57.
3-point goals — Leavenworth 0-7 (Allen 0-1, Palu 0-1, Davis 0-1, Foskett 0-4), Emporia 2-9 (Armitage 0-2, Arndt 1-1, Naab 0-1, VanGundy 1-3, Meza 0-2). Rebounds — Leavenworth 31 (Garvin 8), Emporia 32 (Webb 9). Assists — Leavenworth 4 (Allen, Palu 2), Emporia 8 (Arndt, Naab 2). Turnovers — Leavenworth 22, Emporia 11. Total fouls — Leavenworth 17, Emporia 12. Fouled out — Leavenworth: Moe.