Paton-Churdan girls lose both games this week

By SUE RIEDER
sports@beeherald.com

The Paton-Churdan girls struggled shooting the ball and lost to Exira/EHK  52-36 in Exira on Jan. 17. The Rockets were  only out scored by one point in the second half, but that did nothing to erase the 15 point lead that the Spartans had amassed after two periods. As a team, Paton-Churdan was successful on 25 percent of their shots from the field.The game was not a thing of beauty as Paton-Churdan had 33 turnovers, and Exira/EHK had 24. Carleigh Paup led P-C with 18 points including three shots from beyond the arc and 3 out of four from the free throw line. Crystal Sabus chipped in nine points and was also the team’s leading rebounder with nine. “We were lazy with the basketball, so we turned it over too many times, and we also shot poorly,” said Coach Chris Petersen. “It was a game we could have won.”

The Rockets had a good effort against the ninth ranked girls team in Class 1A, but fell in the home contest 61-51 on Jan. 21. The game featured two of the state’s top scorers in Class 1A. Carleigh Paup from P-C is currently ranked sixth with a 22.4 point game average, and Paige Danner of Ar-We-Va is right behind her averaging 22.1 points per game. Paton-Churdan stayed right with their opponent throughout the first half despite playing the entire second quarter without post player Crystal Sabus who was charged for three early fouls. Ar-We-Va increased their four point half time lead by out scoring P-C 16-9 in the third period, and the eleven point deficit proved to be too much to overcome. Paup scored 28 points to lead the home team, but no other players scored in double figures. The Paton-Churdan team did a good job on the boards by pulling down seven more rebounds than the visitors, but they were more careless with the ball and had 10 more turnovers than their opponent. “It was a good effort, but when you play a quality opponent like Ar-We-Va, you can’t afford to have many offensive or defensive lapses,” said coach Petersen. “Their press was effective, but only because we couldn’t make some of the short shots and lay ups that were available when they didn’t get back to guard us. If you want to have them stop pressing, you have to score points off of it, and we didn’t consistently do that.”

P-C      12   15   28   36
E/EHK  18   30   44   52
Paton-Churdan (36) Scoring- Carleigh Paup 6 3-4 18, Crystal Sabus 3 3-5 9, Kasey Lane 2 0-0 4, Emma Tilley 1 1-2 3, Bayllie Flinn 1 0-0 2. Rebound leaders- Lane 9, Tilley 7, Sydney Koch 6, Sabus 5. Assist leaders- Koch 4, Tilley 3. Steal leaders- Tilley 3, Koch 3. Blocks- Sabus 1, Koch 1. 3-point goals- Paup 3, Tilley 1.
Exira/EHK (52) Scoring leaders- Kennedy Madsen 4 5-11 13, Rachel Smith 4 3-4 12, Mara Burmeister 5 0-2 11. Rebound leaders- Smith 6, Burmeister 6, Madsen 5.

P-C     18   32   41   51    
AWV   19   36   52   61
Paton-Churdan (51)
Scoring- Carleigh Paup 9 8-8 28, Crystal Sabus 2 3-4 7, Kasey Lane 3 0-0 6, Sydney Koch 2 0-0 5, Emma Tilley 1 0-0 3. Rebound leaders- Sabus 8, Tilley 7, Koch 6. Steal leaders- Paup 3, Tilley 2. Assist leaders- Tilley 3, Koch 2. 3-point goals- Paup 2, Tilley 1, Koch 1.
No individual stats available for Ar-We-Va