Generals atone for tough opening loss with two blowout victories
brian questel
December 14, 2011
308
121711 WHSgirlsbk
Promo: Wooster girls bounce back from opening loss with pair of decisive wins
Generals atone for tough opening loss with two blowout victories
By Brian Questel
The first game is always special, so it left the Wooster High girls basketball team with a sour feeling when it dropped a nail-biter to Lake in its season opener.
The Generals opened with a 56-55 loss to Lake in the Hoops 4 Healing tournament, which isnt how any team wants to start. But since that loss to a Lake team that has started 4-0, the Generals have been at the top of their game with dominating performances. Wooster routed Canton South 60-25 before finishing off Clear Fork in similar fashion, routing the Colts on their home floor 64-28 in the Generals Ohio Cardinal Conference opener.
The girls are getting better every practice and improving and honing in on their skills, said Wooster coach Mike Baus, whose team was 15-6 a year ago. Lake was a good team and we lost that by a point, which was disappointing. We had some first-game jitters and we have to learn to work through those a little quicker. But, were playing better now.
Part of that stems from a team that was expected to have a solid bench. That has developed in the early going, a factor that could loom large for the Generals as the season goes on.
We go 9-10 deep and were getting a lot of help off the bench, said Baus. Were not losing any momentum when we sub at this point. That is encouraging.
The Generals balance across their starting lineup has been potent as well.
Against Clear Fork, we had different girls step up, said Baus. Sarah Cairnie had 14 rebounds and seven steals, and the team as a whole had 14 blocks. Weve gone a whole season without that many, and (post) Andi Logee had six of them. Halle (Gallo-Malta) had 20 points and six assists and Lauren Walker had 16 points.
Theyre playing very unselfishly, seeing the court and sharing the ball. Its exciting to coach that.
Despite Woosters success last season, teams were able to dial in on Walker and Gallo-Malta and impact the Generals game plan.
In the past its kinda been a Halle and Lauren show at times, but I think now with the depth we have and the girls stepping up in different categories, thats going to be harder to do, said Baus. Claire Ballard has been around a double/double every game and Sarah is a sophomore who is improving every game. She had 14 rebounds, but she also had seven steals. Shes settling in and contributing. Andi is blocking shots. That makes it tougher to concentrate on Halle and Lauren, period.
We would love to have that first game to do over, but thats not to be. I really think in our last two games and practices, it seems weve taken some steps forward. We still need to improve and we have some tough conference games coming up this week. As long keep improving, well be a team to make a little noise.
Wooster hosted OCC foes Mansfield Senior December 15 and Lexington December 17.
