Treasure Valley Teams Hand Cards A Pair Of Losses

The Lady Cardinals earned an exciting win over Grace last Tuesday but their busy week was not over.  Soda Springs played host to two teams that made the trip over from the Boise area.  The Cardinals continued their busy week first by taking on Parma.  The Lady Panthers entered the contest having come off of a big win over 4A Homedale.  

As the Cardinals and Panthers tipped off this game it was clear that the Panthers had a considerable size advantage.  Getting inside shots was tough for Soda Springs but it was far from their only challenge in this game.  It was a slow start for both teams with several turnovers and very few shots even being taken.  When the first quarter came to a close the score was a dismal 3-4 in favor of the Panthers.  

In the second quarter Soda Springs was able to keep it close early but the size of the Panthers earned them plenty of second chance points off of offensive rebounds.  Some bad passing by the Cardinals also led to some easy run out scores for the Panthers.  As the first half ended the Panthers had pulled away a little to take an 11-20 lead.

The third quarter was another low scoring quarter for the Cardinals.  Soda Springs was unable to earn a single field goal and only managed to go three for six from the foul line to add just three points to their total.  Meanwhile the Panthers had begun to click on offense using both their inside size as well as good outside shooting to extend the lead to 14-36 at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter was the Cardinals best scoring quarter.  Soda was able to outpace the Panthers 15-13 in the quarter but ultimately lost the game by the score of 49-29.  Despite the loss Soda Springs found scoring from several different players proving that they may be deeper on the bench than originally thought.

C. Gronning 2, R. Harris 2, A. Goodin 3, G. Moldenhauer 4, E. Wood 6, J. Rasmussen 5, J. Parker 2, H. Mumford 2, J. Tingey 3.

Soda Springs 3 8 3 15

Parma 4 16 16 13

In a quick turnaround the Lady Cardinals took on the Melba Mustangs less than twenty-four hours after their loss to Parma.  Though Melba also had some length on their team Soda Springs seemed to match up better with the Mustangs than did with the Panthers.  The game seemed pretty even in the early going before both teams went cold to finish the first period with the Cardinals trailing by three.  

The second quarter saw Soda continue to struggle on the boards just as they had the night before.  Giving up offensive rebounds to the Mustangs as well as getting beat on their full court press led to the Lady Cardinals seeing some foul trouble before halftime.  After battling to tie the game at eighteen points a piece the Cards gave up more rebounds and sent the Mustangs to the charity stripe enough to once again find themselves trailing 23-27 headed into the locker room for halftime.

The Cardinals started the third hot going on a 4-0 run.  Eventually both teams settled in for a hard fought few minutes.  After climbing to a small four point lead with just over a minute left in the quarter Melba called a timeout.  Out of the timeout break the Mustangs applied some pressure defense and the quarter ended in rough fashion for the Cardinals who now trailed 31-40.

Soda Springs started the fourth quarter aggressive and quickly got the score to 35-40.  Unfortunately that would be the closest that they would be able to get.  Foul trouble and pressure from the Mustang defense began to take its toll on the Cardinals.  In addition to the other issues Melba began to hit the three point shot and the lead got as big as eighteen.  Soda did their best to fight back into the game but could not get it back to single digits again.  Soda Springs lost this game 51-62.  Coach Gronning continues to fine tune his team as he has already used several different starting lineups and gave several younger girls some minutes to prove themselves.  This team has some good shooters and some great speed.  Once they clean up some of the mistakes they will be in a place where they can win these close games.

C. Gronning 13, A. Goodin 9, G. Moldenhauer 10, J. Rasmussen 12, H. Mumford 7.

Soda Springs 9 14 8 20

Melba 12 15 13 22