Cheers erupted when the buzzer sounded signaling a key victory for the Lady Spartans in districts.The Spartans won their first round game against Fort Zumwalt East tonight 49 – 42. They never lost the lead during the game, keeping command the whole game.
“I wasn’t really too worried about us blowing the lead,we had control pretty much the whole game,” Coach Brian Ricker said.
The team had the lead after all four quarters with their highest lead coming in the 3rd when they were up 42-25. The leading scorer on the team, senior Katy Gerler, put up 19 points for the team, with ten of them coming in the first half and nine in the second.
“I definitely need to improve on my free throws and try to go harder to the basket so that they know fouls are being made, but overall I was happy with my performance for the team,” Gerler said.
The second leading scorer for the spartans in the first half was freshman Emma Raup providing nine points for the Lady Spartans — all off three pointers. Even with such a win the team knew that at some times during the game they should have picked it up.
“In the beginning we did pretty solid, but in the second half we started lacking what we did in the first,” Raup said.
In the second half, the team put up 26 points and committed 10 fouls, keeping command of the game only allowing the Lions to come within six points at any time during the second half.
“We played hard but we definitely needed to clean it up and we weren’t there mentally sometimes and that lead to points and turnovers for them but we got the win,” Gerler said.
Even though they thought the team could have done better they will make sure to get prepared for their game tomorrow against Fort Zumwalt South. South was GAC Central runner up last year and will be bringing a few challenges with them.
“They have two strong girls on the inside and that is not an ideal matchup for us, but we will need to find a way to disrupt that to help us win,” Coach Ricker said.
The Spartans look to keep momentum and defeat Fort Zumwalt South tomorrow at 4 p.m. on FHC’s home court.
