Sweet Home girls basketball dropped to .500 on the season last week with a 44-39 loss to Estacada on the road on Dec. 16. The Huskies are 3-3 and ranked no. 18 in 4A.
Sweet Home trailed 21-19 at halftime and 28-24 going into the fourth quarter before the Rangers were able to close out the win in the final frame.
Estacada (3-2, no. 15) outshot Sweet Home 37.2% to 27.5% from the field. They snagged 40 rebounds to Sweet Home’s 25. Sweet Home was, however, able to force 19 turnovers while only giving the ball up 11 times.
“We played a great basketball game and just came up short,” Head Coach Michelle Knight said. “The girls are working hard every night. We’re working on fine tuning some things.
“We played really hard all four quarters. All the things we’ve practiced all week long, they take that into the game. They never let down and never give up.”
She noted that “We struggled with rebounding early in the game, which was costly for us. In close games like that we have to get rebounds.”
And then “Shots didn’t fall late in the fourth quarter, we missed a couple of free throws, and had a turnover or two,” she recalled.
“Those are game changing moments. But had we taken care of some stuff earlier in the game, maybe that wouldn’t have been such an important event that late in the game.”
In conclusion, she said “We win or we learn. And if we learn, we’ll just take that moving forward into the next game.”
Senior Brooke Burke led the Huskies with 23 points on 8-29 shooting, going 6-18 from threepoint territory. Sophomore Kaylynn Mamac scored 11 points on 4-6 shooting, pulling down a teamhigh six rebounds.
This week the Huskies host Sisters (1-6, no. 41) at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 20.