The girls basketball team defeated the Staley High School Falcons tonight and took third place in the KAMO tournament. With a close score throughout the game, the girls managed to pull out and eventually win, 65-54.

Trailing by four points at the end of the first quarter, the Huskies quickly brought the score back up by the second quarter. Although the opposing team brought new difficulties to the court, senior Lauren Mertz said  the team did a good job of handling them.

“I think we started a little slow on our defense,” Mertz said. “But I think we did well at playing a team that was completely different than the last team we played…these were very fast girls who shot a lot of three’s.”

Head coach Brian Bubalo agrees with Mertz and said  the Staley Falcons lived and died by shooting three point shots, but that did not stop the team from outperforming them.

“[The game] was awesome and we played really well most of the time,” Bubalo said.”That team  is really fast and they played a scrambled type of game…everyone contributed and everyone made some really good plays.”

By the end of the first half of the game the Huskies lead the game with a score of 38-26, throughout the rest of the game the score fluctuated back and forth, but remained close. Going into the fourth and final quarter the Huskies continued to lead the game with a score of 48-42 and by the end of the fourth, the Huskies had defeated the Falcons with  a final score of 64-54, claiming the third place title in the KAMO tournament.

Throughout the game Bubalo said that the team played very well, but they will always have things they need to improve upon.

“I thought our passing was excellent, we only had 12 turnovers during the game, our post players did a really good job of posting up and our guards did a good job of letting us rebound,” Bubalo said. “But we always need to work on free throw shooting.”

Both Mertz and Bubalo can agree that going into the second half of the season with a third place title is exciting, but they will continue to have expectations from the team as well as themselves.

“We’re 6-5  right now so we’re ending the first half on a high note and I really expect us to do really well for the rest of the season,” Mertz said.

Bubalo said that he believes the team has a good grip on the game and working together and is excited to get started with the second season. He expects the team to be more competitive and to continue to work hard in all the games to come, Bubalo said.

“This is the second half of the season, we were five and five in the first half and I kind of feel like we know what we’re doing more,” Bubalo said. “I look forward to us being very competitive and to be in every ball game so we have a chance to win every game, that doesn’t mean we’ll win every game but I think we’re going to be right there.”