GCHS girls come up short at Liberal
Story Credit – Brett Marshall/GCHS Athletics
The Garden City Lady Buffaloes’ basketball team was looking for a signature victory in the Western Athletic Conference on Tuesday night when they visited the “Big House” in Liberal to take on the always-tough Lady Red.
For much of the 32 minutes of action, the Lady Buffs played the Lady Red heads up only to find themselves on the short end of a final 59-54 score.
The loss dropped the Buffs to 7-4 overall and 1-1 in the Western Athletic Conference. They will return home for a Friday night battle with defending conference champion Hays at 6 p.m. in The Garden. Liberal improves to 7-2 overall and 1-1 in the WAC. They face Dodge City on Friday.
“It’s a tough loss, but we are learning through adversity and the girls continued to punch back and respond when Liberal went on a run,” said first-year head coach Kelley Snodgrass. “We needed a few more stops defensively and more shots to fall early.”
The Buffs trailed 12-8 after one quarter while a late 10-3 run near the end of the second quarter drew them within 26-25 at intermission.
Snodgrass watched her youthful squad score the first five points of the third stanza to go up 30-26 only to have the Lady Red knock down three consecutive 3-pointers to regain the lead at 35-30. The Buffs were right in the thick of the battle at the end of three, trailing just 42-39.
The Buffs hung close throughout the fourth quarter, but just couldn’t get enough stops against seniors Kylie Rhine (16 points including a pair of 3-pointers) and 6-1 forward Shamari Lewis (21 points). Liberal’s Madysen Hammond hit a pair of critical threes for the Lady Red in the third quarter to keep the Buffs from retaking the lead.
Down the stretch, the Buffs had their share of open shots but couldn’t get those clutch baskets at the critical moments.
“We got the looks we were wanting, but unfortunately they didn’t fall tonight,” Snodgrass said.
The Buffs got 18 points from Mia Hannagan, all coming from behind the arc with 6 of them; Myah Korf and Tegan Snodgrass added 12 points each, respectively.
Snodgrass has said all season that rebounding was one of the areas where improvement was needed and that was evident against the Lady Red as Liberal dominated the boards 44-26. Lewis was the big rebounder, pulling down 18 to go with her 21 points.
The Lady Buffs had an off night shooting, too, hitting just 16-of-52 field goals (30.8 percent), going 8-for-29 (27.6 percent) from 3-point range. Liberal, meanwhile, shot 39.7 percent on 23-of-58 attempts and were 6-of-18 from behind the arc.
The assists favored Liberal 13-11 while the Buffs forced the Lady Red into 17 turnovers while committing just 9 miscues.
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Western Athletic Conference
Game-2
At Liberal
Liberal 59, Garden City 54
Garden City (54) — Powers 1 4-4 6, Hannagan 6 0-0 18, Brown 1 0-0 2, Meng 1 2-2 4, Korf 5 0-0 12, Snodgrass 2 8-15 12. Totals 16 14-21 54.
Liberal (59) — Rhine 6 2-3 16, Lewis 9 4-4 21, Olvera 2 0-0 5, Alvarez 0 0-2 0, Hammond 2 1-2 7, Cadena 1 0-0 2, Mullens 4 0-0 8. Totals 23 7-11 59.
Garden City (7-4/1-1)…8…17…14…15…–…54
Liberal (7-2/1-1)…12…14…16…17…–…59
3-point goals—Garden City: 8 (Hannagan 6, Korf 2); Liberal: 6 (Lewis 1, Rhine 2, Olvera 1, Hammond 2). Fouls—Garden City: 14; Liberal: 13. Fouled out–None.