On paper, it might appear Lebo girls coach Lucas Matile has little to be upset about.
Lebo shut out Hartford for the first 10-and-a-half minutes of its opening-round game of the Lyon County League Tournament. The Wolves held the Jaguars to 25 percent shooting for the game, led by as many as 16 points and won by 10.
But Matile said his second-seeded Wolves got outplayed by the seventh-seeded Jaguars in their 42-32 win on Monday at White Auditorium.
“I didn’t feel like we did a very good job of executing,” Matile said. “Defensively, we were OK at times. We just struggled at times. The first half, they just flat-out outhustled us, they outrebounded us, and those are things we definitely need to change if we want to go very far in this tournament.”
Lebo wasn’t stellar offensively itself, shooting just 27 percent from the floor and holding only single-digit leads during Hartford’s early offensive struggles. Where the Wolves really separated themselves from Hartford, though, was at the free throw line, finishing with a strong 16-of-20 accuracy. Posts Morgan Laflin and Lauren Schlesener went a combined 13-for-13 from the line to help offset the Wolves’ problems shooting the ball. Laflin’s feather touch at the line resulted in a 7-for-7 performance there and a game-high 13 points.
“I work on my free throws a lot,” Laflin said. “Sometimes I spend 30 minutes shooting free throws. I usually shoot about 50.”
Schlesener was 6-for-6 at the line en route to 10 points, and Shelby Robke also had 10, including seven in the third quarter to help Lebo (10-2) pull away for good.
But even with a win that was never really in doubt, Matile wasn’t impressed, especially with the first half. Not even a first-quarter zero for Hartford on the scoreboard could prompt him to laud his team; after all, the Wolves managed just six points themselves in the opening quarter.
“We struggled to do some things,” he said. “We struggled to put the ball in the hole, we struggled to run an offense. (Hartford) missed a lot of easy shots, too, in the first quarter. I just wasn’t very happy with the effort tonight.”
While the Wolves used baskets from Laflin and Schlesener and two free throws by Brittany Hase to slog to their early 6-0 lead, Hartford missed everything from midrange jumpers to uncontested layups. The Jaguars finally found the middle of the hoop in the second quarter, with Kellie Farr breaking the scoring drought at the 5:30 mark with a layin underneath. She and Paige Hamman both scored four points in the quarter, but a basket and two free throws by Schlesener and a 3-pointer by Robke helped Lebo establish an 18-10 lead at half.
Robke got hot as the second half opened and helped the Wolves push the lead into double digits for good. She hit a jumper from the right elbow, a three from the right wing and a 16-foot jumper on the left side in the third quarter, and Laflin added four free throws in as many tries to lead Lebo to a 31-18 lead at the end of the third.
“I just kind of look to shoot when I’m open,” Robke said. “But I think, as a team, we just feed off of anyone that makes shots. (It) gets us going.”
Lebo’s lead reached 16 three different times in the fourth quarter, but the Jaguars scored the game’s last six points to make the score respectable. Cheyenne Veatch hit a 3-pointer and was fouled with 26.7 seconds left, and hit the ensuing free throw for a four-point play, and Farr scored inside with a few seconds remaining to bring the deficit back to 10. Farr scored 12 points to lead Hartford (4-8) and Hamman finished with 10.
“I thought we played hard and intense all night,” Hartford coach Tammy Windle said. “We just couldn’t make a shot. We really struggled making a shot in the first half, started making some the second half, but the damage was kind of already done. And we’d start to make a comeback, but they’d hit a shot or two there, or get to the line, and they’re very good free throw shooters. So they took care of business on that end.”
Matile thought that in the second half, the Wolves settled down and started to make progress on areas he wanted them to address. In the time leading up to Friday’s 4 p.m. semifinal with third-seeded Olpe — which Lebo beat 47-32 earlier this year — he plans to have the Wolves focus on boxing out and offensive execution.
“We got to where we were kind of standing around and not making them work very hard defensively,” he said. “That’s something that we can easily fix — it’s just a matter of, are we willing to do it?”
“Friday, I think, set us back a little bit,” Laflin said, referring to the Wolves’ loss to Southern Coffey County in last week’s league-play finale. “We didn’t play good at all. But we’re gonna work really hard this week in practice and hopefully come back and beat Olpe again Friday.”
Hartford will meet sixth-seeded Waverly in Thursday’s consolation-bracket action at 4 p.m.
Lebo girls 42, Hartford 32
Hartford 0 10 8 14 — 32
Lebo 6 12 13 11 — 42
Hartford (4-8) — Farr 5-12 2-4 12, Wilkerson 0-15 1-2 1, Hamman 4-11 2-4 10, Lee 0-2 0-0 0, Veatch 2-3 1-1 6, Williams 0-1 0-0 0, Preeo 1-2 1-2 3, Clark 0-1 0-1 0, Wilson 0-0 0-0 0, Bailey 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 12-48 7-14 32.
Lebo (10-2) — Hase 1-5 2-3 4, Robke 4-6 0-0 10, Schlesener 2-6 6-6 10, Tastove 1-7 0-0 2, Laflin 3-12 7-7 13, Eagleburger 0-3 0-2 0, Milota 0-0 0-0 0, Miller 1-4 1-2 3, Jones 0-1 0-0 0, Ables 0-0 0-0 0, Fehr 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-44 16-20 42.
3-point goals — Hartford 1-10 (Veatch 1-1, Wilkerson 0-7, Hamman 0-2), Lebo 2-5 (Robke 2-3, Tastove 0-2). Fouled out — Lee.
Olpe girls 61, Waverly 29
Kathryn Flott scored 22 and Katie Moyer added 15 to lead Olpe to an easy first round victory on Monday afternoon at the Lyon County League Tournament.
Moyer opened the game with four 3-pointers in the first quarter, and Flott scored 14 of her points in the third quarter. The Eagles move onto a second round meeting with Lebo.
Olpe girls 61, Waverly 29
Waverly 11 4 8 6 — 29
Olpe 17 16 20 8 — 61
Waverly — Britton 2, Fisher 3, Wilson 5, Meader 8, Johnson 5, Pyle 6.
Olpe — Henderson 3, McDougald 8, Kuhmann 2, Cole 5, Moyer 15, Bartley 3, Flott 22, Bell 1, Hall 2.
MdCV girls 37,
Flinthills 31
Heather Schuyler scored 13 to lead MdCV in the play-in game of the Lyon County League Tournament on Monday.
The Trojans will meet Southern Coffey County tonight at 7 in the first round.
Marais des Cygnes Valley girls 37, Flinthills 31
Flinthills 3 10 7 11 — 31
MdCV 14 9 4 10 — 37
Flinthills — Harsh 10, Finstad 1, Naill 13, Fullerton 2, Hilton 2, Jackson 3.
MdCV — Rose 8, Spencer 2, Schuyler 13, Vandorpool 3.