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DODGE CITY —
As the seconds ticked down in the third quarter of Saturday afternoon’s contest between the Lady Demons and the Goddard Eisenhower Tigers, Dodge clung to a two-point lead. It had been a back and forth battle that had seen both teams catch fire and then go ice cold.
With the Lady Tigers driving up the court, the final seconds whisking away, someone from the Tigers’ fan section yelled “shoot the ball!” In response, a Tiger player lofted up a prayer from mid-court and into the basket, leading to an eruption of cheers from the Eisenhower fanbase.
It left the Demons down by one going into the fourth quarter. While most teams would look at that shot as a sign of things not being meant to be, the Demons regrouped and had a quarter for the ages, shutting out the Tigers 19-0 in the fourth quarter to charge out of the Dodge City High School Field House with a 64-46 victory.
The game began inauspiciously for the home team, falling behind 7-0 in the early minutes, a deficit that grew to 15-5 near the end of the first quarter. DCHS would trail 16-10 after the end of the first and that is when the stars of the game, Brenna Briggs and Ashley Stephenson, would dust off their Nikes and put their stamps in the history books of the women’s basketball program.
Briggs would continually find herself open from behind the arc, with the Eisenhower coach yelling at his players not to let her shoot.
Boy, was he right.
Briggs drained shot after shot, three after three, finishing with six three-pointers, which tied the school record previously held by Valerie Ortiz. She would also hit 11 of her 19 shots from the floor, finishing with a school-record 32 points in a flurry of layups and long-range perimeter bombs that found nothing but the bottom of the net.
As for Stephenson, if you see her name on a “most wanted” poster, it’s probably because she was a thief on Saturday. She finished with a school-record 11 steals to go with her 13 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, coming painstakingly close to the ever-so-rare quadruple-double.
Dodge picked up the victory despite starting off slow, which has been the scene during each of the Demons’ three games this season. For head coach Justin Briggs, he hopes his team can play the first quarter like they’ve played the final quarters as the season progresses.
“I’m not sure what the deal is with the start of a game and one of these days it’s probably going to bite us, we need to go out there and knock some shots down and not dig ourselves a hole early,” Briggs said. “Early on we were struggling, we forced some things that we probably should not have, but once our girls got settled down, things started clicking for us and shutting them out in the fourth quarter was huge.”
As for the star of the night, Brenna, Briggs had no idea she was at the level of points she was and was even playing at a disadvantage in the second half.
“I really didn’t realize she had that many, to be honest, I know the entire second half she only had one contact in her eyes, so maybe that’s what we’ll do the rest of the season,” Briggs joked. “Our offense isn’t made for one person to take all the shots, it’s made for any of our guards to be able to put those shots up and Brenna happened to be the one with the hot hand.”
The Demons improve to 2-1 with the victory over Eisenhower and will conclude their 2011 portion of the season with a road game against Ulysses on Friday, Dec. 16 with tip-off scheduled for 6 p.m.
As the seconds ticked down in the third quarter of Saturday afternoon’s contest between the Lady Demons and the Goddard Eisenhower Tigers, Dodge clung to a two-point lead. It had been a back and forth battle that had seen both teams catch fire and then go ice cold.
With the Lady Tigers driving up the court, the final seconds whisking away, someone from the Tigers’ fan section yelled “shoot the ball!” In response, a Tiger player lofted up a prayer from mid-court and into the basket, leading to an eruption of cheers from the Eisenhower fanbase.
It left the Demons down by one going into the fourth quarter. While most teams would look at that shot as a sign of things not being meant to be, the Demons regrouped and had a quarter for the ages, shutting out the Tigers 19-0 in the fourth quarter to charge out of the Dodge City High School Field House with a 64-46 victory.
The game began inauspiciously for the home team, falling behind 7-0 in the early minutes, a deficit that grew to 15-5 near the end of the first quarter. DCHS would trail 16-10 after the end of the first and that is when the stars of the game, Brenna Briggs and Ashley Stephenson, would dust off their Nikes and put their stamps in the history books of the women’s basketball program.
Briggs would continually find herself open from behind the arc, with the Eisenhower coach yelling at his players not to let her shoot.
Boy, was he right.
Briggs drained shot after shot, three after three, finishing with six three-pointers, which tied the school record previously held by Valerie Ortiz. She would also hit 11 of her 19 shots from the floor, finishing with a school-record 32 points in a flurry of layups and long-range perimeter bombs that found nothing but the bottom of the net.
As for Stephenson, if you see her name on a “most wanted” poster, it’s probably because she was a thief on Saturday. She finished with a school-record 11 steals to go with her 13 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, coming painstakingly close to the ever-so-rare quadruple-double.
Dodge picked up the victory despite starting off slow, which has been the scene during each of the Demons’ three games this season. For head coach Justin Briggs, he hopes his team can play the first quarter like they’ve played the final quarters as the season progresses.
“I’m not sure what the deal is with the start of a game and one of these days it’s probably going to bite us, we need to go out there and knock some shots down and not dig ourselves a hole early,” Briggs said. “Early on we were struggling, we forced some things that we probably should not have, but once our girls got settled down, things started clicking for us and shutting them out in the fourth quarter was huge.”
As for the star of the night, Brenna, Briggs had no idea she was at the level of points she was and was even playing at a disadvantage in the second half.
“I really didn’t realize she had that many, to be honest, I know the entire second half she only had one contact in her eyes, so maybe that’s what we’ll do the rest of the season,” Briggs joked. “Our offense isn’t made for one person to take all the shots, it’s made for any of our guards to be able to put those shots up and Brenna happened to be the one with the hot hand.”
The Demons improve to 2-1 with the victory over Eisenhower and will conclude their 2011 portion of the season with a road game against Ulysses on Friday, Dec. 16 with tip-off scheduled for 6 p.m.
