Lady Bulldog seventh graders place fourth at Conference

The Lovell seventh-grade girls basketball team played their final games of the season at the conference tournament in Worland Saturday, taking on Riverton, Cody and Worland in the tournament.

Lovell beat Riverton 23-20 in the first game, and Coach Collin McArthur said, “The girls played great this weekend. We played a Riverton team that was much better than the first one we played.”

Lovell got off to a quick start and led 14-7 at the half, but in the third quarter Riverton caught up, tying the score 19-19. The fourth quarter was a low scoring defensive battle that came down to the final second of the game when the Bulldogs stopped Riverton from making a last second shot. The leading scorer for Lovell was Gemma Walker, who scored 11, and Kylie Nicholls added 4, Emily Sanders and Nellie Guccion each had 3 and Olivia Rael finished with 2 points.

The Lovell girls lost their next game against Cody, 34-14.

“In the next game we had against Cody our girls started to get fatigued, and unfortunately we couldn’t pull out a win,” McArthur said, “but the girls played one of their best games against Cody, even being tired.”

Walker led the Lady Bulldogs with 4 points, followed by Sanders and Guccion with 3 each and Rael and Chloe Asay 2 points each.

Lovell fell to Worland 38-17 in game three. This game was similar to Cody, but Lovell kept the game closer, trailing 16-8 at the half. Worland won the second half 22-9.

Guccion led Lovell with 9 points, and Sanders and Walker both added 4 points for the Bulldogs.

“We went in as the sixth seed and ended up taking fourth, so they played hard,” McArthur said. “We are so proud of their effort. They were a very good group to work with, super coachable and positive. We will miss this group a lot, as well as their parents, who were a huge part of these girls’ success and improvement.

“For being one of if not the smallest team in the conference, we were able to win almost every B game and get closer against the top teams in A while winning all but one of our close games against the likes of Lander and Riverton. We wish the girls the best in the future and know they have the potential to do great things.”