Rematch coming up: Lady Bulldogs fall just short at Powell

The Lovell Lady Bulldogs gave the Powell Panthers all they wanted in the regular and conference season finale in Powell Thursday night before falling 48-42.

The loss leaves Lovell as the number five seed in this week’s 3A West Regional Tournament, which LHS will host today (Thursday), Friday and Saturday. Lovell’s first opponent: Powell.

Powell led 9-6 after a defensive first quarter Thursday, and Lovell won the second 16-12 to lead 22-21 at halftime. Powell edged Lovell 14-11 in the third to lead 35-33 and pulled away 13-9 in the fourth to win by six.

“I thought we competed well with them throughout most of the game,” head coach Brian May said. “I just think sometimes our shot selections aren’t as good as they should be at times, and in certain key moments of the game maybe we can get a better look at the basket instead of a quick three or something like that.

“Their guards are really hard to stay in front of, and I think at key moments in the second half they kind of broke us down. And some of their posts finished off of those dishes. We would have decent defense and then have to rotate up, so they’d kick it to a post. They had a couple of those.”

May said the Lady Bulldogs did a pretty good job defensively against Powell guards Emery Hernandez and Coy Erickson, holding the sharpshooters to 10 and 13 points, respectively, but the drive-and-dish plays allowed Leah Graham to score 12 points for the home team.

Lovell shot 33 percent from the field compared to Powell’s 40 percent, and the free-throw bugaboo raised its head again, as the Lady Bulldogs hit just four of 12 shots at the stripe. Lovell did outrebound Powell 34-26.

Avery Walker pulled down 11 rebounds for the Lady Bulldogs, Brooklin Clark eight, and Ali Walker and Morgan Harshman six each. Avery Walker led with three assists.

Ali Walker and Harshman scored 10 points each, Avery Walker 9, Clark 6, Becca Nichols 4 and Kaydree Owens 3.

Regional tournament

The Lady Bulldogs (4-6, 14-8) will play Powell again in the first round of the regional tournament today (Thursday) at Winterholler Gym. The game tips off at 4:30 p.m. Powell (6-4, 15-7) is the number four seed in the tournament.

“We’ll go back and look at the film and see where we can adjust, make some better decisions and finish a little bit better,” May said of the repeat matchup. “We’ll maybe try some different types of defenses and different spots in the game, just to see if you can slow them down a little bit or make them have to adjust to certain things.”

May said he would like to see the Lady Bulldogs’ transition game pick up, noting, “We need to run the floor better. Sometimes we’re not running as hard as we should. We need to get the ball up the floor.”

If the Lady Bulldogs beat Powell, they will likely meet top-ranked and undefeated Cody, who will play Mountain View at 3 p.m. Thursday. The Lovell-Cody semifinal game would be at 4:30 p.m. Friday. If Lovell loses to Powell, the Bulldogs will play the Cody-Mountain View loser at 10:30 a.m. on Friday.

“Mountain View is a scrappy, physical team,” May said. “They’ll just keep after you, too. They’re not going to come in and lie down. They’re just gonna play hard, and you have to play a good game.”

Saturday games are at 9:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

May said he and the team are excited to be playing at home for the tournament and playing back-to-back with the Lovell boys (6 p.m.).

“That’s going to be a bonus for the community and for our girls,” he said. “I think they’ll have a little more juice in front of our crowd. (For the community) it’s just the opportunity for our crowd to be watching our kids. They don’t think we get enough opportunities on our home court to have our community there and loud and excited. I think those types of things pump your kids up.”