Crazy Eights: Lady Buffs Win by Eight, Boys Lose by Same Amount

Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The key to both a win for the Garden City Girls Basketball team and a loss by the boys Friday night against Palmer Ridge at the Clarion Inn Roundball Classic was when the Buffs scored their points.

For the girls they outscored Palmer Ridge 14-3 in the fourth quarter and turned a 3 point deficit into a 42-34 win.  Coach Matt Pfeifer has led his team to back to back wins after they went winless in their first three games of the Hays Shootout last weekend.

Girls Highlights

Abby Dart once again was the key cog for the Buffs offense scoring on 18 points on six of 18 shooting.  It was one shy of her season high 19 points a feat she has accomplished twice this season.  Josie Calzonetti added 11 for Garden City as she used her ability to slash to the rim.  Garden went only 2-10 in shooting 3s.

The Lady Buffs were good at forcing turnovers getting Palmer Ridge to committed 28 of them while Garden City had 21 of their own.  Sam Rippley and Makenna Hageman scored 9 points each for the Lady Bears, but combined for only six points in the second half. 

Post-game Comments from GCHS Girls Coach Matt Pfeifer

The loss dropped Palmer Ridge to 3-3, Garden City improved their record to 2-3.

Over to the boys game the scoring from Garden City came too early and they could not find the consistency after the first five minutes of the game where they jumped out to a 15-1 lead and would eventually lose 50-42.  The Buffs could not stop their 0-4 slide coming into the game that has them out to their worst start in over a decade.

Boys Highlights

Palmer went almost six minutes without making a shot from the field.  The drought ended when senior Tyler Trego connected on a three and even despite only scoring 4 more points the remainder of the half, Garden still had a 2 point lead of 19-17 going into the locker room.

The Buffs had a game high 17 from junior guard Garrett Doll, but did not have many other options as the game rolled along.  Demarcus Elliott scored all six of his points during the big run at the beginning of the game and he was the second best scorer of the night along with Zac Karlin for Garden City.

Garden allowed a 10-0 run over the last 6 minutes of the third quarter after Doll nailed a 3 pointer giving his team the lead again at 22-19.  Palmer Ridge built up the lead to double digits with a little more than 5 minutes left until Garden cut it to 4 at 41-37 with 2:25 left.

The difference Palmer Ridge hit their free throws at the end and Garden continued to struggle from the line. For the night Garden City went 3-13 from the stripe, Palmer Ridge hit 16 of 24 free throws. The win helped the Bears rebound from a loss Friday night in Scott City improving to 4-1.  Zach Hester was the only player for Palmer Ridge that made it to double figures.  He scored 11 in the win.

Post-game Comments from GCHS Coach Jacy Holloway

Garden City plays Holcomb Saturday night at GCHS to wrap up the weekend of play in the Clarion Inn Roundball Classic.