Colby girls fall 66-55 to Cardinals
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Colby girls basektball squad suffered their third loss of the season at the hands of the Thorp Cardinals this past Monday. The Cardinals used a 44 point second half to put away the visiting Hornets, defeating them 66-55.
A 21-point performance from senior Hayden Willner would not be enough for Colby to overcome their non-conference opponent. Both teams were coming off of tough losses, with Thorp dropping in their first game of the season to Augusta and Colby falling to Columbus in the final seconds of their game last Tuesday. As such, despite it being a non-conference matchup, the game held the potential to serve as a momentum shifter for the winner.
The first half proved to be slightly better for the visiting Hornets, with the visitors getting offensive production from several different sources. Kylie Orth hit two three-point shots and led the team with eight points in the half and Savana Thomsen added seven. Willner contributed six as Colby hit Thorp with a wellbalanced attack. After 18 minutes, Colby found themselves up 26-24 in a tightly contested game.
Willner provided Colby with 15 of their 29 second-half points, knocking down six field goals and three free throws to lead the Hornets. Unfortunately for the visitors, Elizabeth Frankewicz also came alive in the latter period. After a seven-point first half, Frankewicz dropped 15 points in the second, splashing a trio of three-point shots and hitting all four of her free throw attempts. She also got help from Larissa Raether and Shaylie Zarza, who added nine and eight points respectively in the second half. Meanwhile Colby lacked a consistent second option on the offensive end. Thorp pushed their advantage and outscored the Hornets 42-29 to take the victory 66-55.
In the affair, 65 free throws were attempted, with the Hornets taking 36 of those. Twenty-seven were taken in the second half, but Colby only made 10 of those attempts, going 37 percent from the charity stripe. Meanwhile, Thorp shot 62 percent from the free throw line over the course of the game.
Willner finished the game with 21 points, followed by Orth who came in with 12 and Thomsen who finished with nine. Harrison Schmitt contributed four points, Hillary Feiten and Angelique Hernandez had three each, Alexis Vanderhoof scored two and Hannah Trush had one.
After opening the season with a victory over Greenwood, the Hornets have dropped three straight. They will look to get back on track this Friday when they take on Owen-Withee at home. The Blackhawks will be in search of their first win of the season after starting out 0-2, though both losses were to preseason conference champion favorites Athens and Neillsville. The game is set to start at 7:15 p.m.
