Lady Blues a step slow in home loss to Childress

Coming off a holiday break can be tough for a team looking to get back into the flow of competition.

The Graham Lady Blues came out fighting but struggled to put together a consistent offensive performance in their 47-21 loss to the Childress Lady Bobcats last Thursday, Dec. 28.

“Everybody has a first game back coming out of the break and just (our) energy was probably a little low at times,” head coach Kyle Wood said.

The Lady Blues seemed just a step or two slow for most of the game compared to the visiting Lady Bobcats. But for the first quarter, things looked like a relatively even match-up.

Graham hung in there with Childress throughout the opening minutes and the visitors held a small lead by the end of the quarter.

Senior Hannah Williams got things started for the Lady Blues by scoring their first four points of the game. She managed to get into the lane and score off the backboard first, then a few plays later earned a trip to the free throw line and drained a couple of free throws.

As a defensive unit the Lady Blues worked well together and communicated everything. Childress had multiple long possessions where the visitors passed the ball around without being able to find many openings.

However, the Lady Bobcats were able to find success with their long-range shots early. After one long possession that lasted more than a minute with the ball getting passed around outside the 3-point arc, one of Childress’s players knocked down a 3-point shot which seemed to deflate Graham’s energy a bit.

“They were having a struggle to get looks and we were playing good defense and keeping them out of the paint. Then it ended with a kind of a breakdown, (which) led to three (points),” Wood said. “I think that kind of spurred them…they hit that (3-pointer) and kind of took our energy.”

The shooting struggles continued in the second quarter for the Lady Blues as they only managed to score three points in the frame. Junior Rebecca McGregor took things into her own hands and scored on a driving layup from the right wing and later junior Emi Gordy made 1-of-2 free throws.

But as the halftime buzzer sounded Childress went into the break leading Graham 23-9.

“The first half, I thought we actually took some good shots, just the ball didn’t drop. We had some looks in transition I liked, some drives that I liked, just the ball didn’t drop,” Wood said.

The third quarter brought more challenges for Graham as the shots continued to miss whether from close-range or far. Childress had begun to figure out the Lady Blues’ defense and found the bottom of the bucket more.

Freshman Addyson Weaver had the play of the quarter when she reached up for an offensive rebound after a teammate’s missed shot and put the ball back up aggressively while getting fouled. She converted on the free throw to give her 3 points in the game.

As the teams entered the final period of play, the Lady Blues continued to stay aggressive on offense and saw a bit more success. Senior Madi Wilde had four points in the frame as she scored the team’s final basket in the remaining seconds on a steal and then a fastbreak layup.

But the damage was done and Childress had earned the 47-21 win to spoil the Lady Blues’ first game out of the holidays.

Graham had struggled with seeing the shots fall and Wood’s normal advice is to try to get to the rim and earn free throws by getting fouled. But that didn’t happen much in this game either.

“When you’re struggling to shoot the ball we talked about getting to the rim and getting to the free throw line. Unfortunately, we didn’t shoot a lot of free throws and we got the ball at the rim some, we just missed some shots,” Wood said. “That’s kind of characteristic of the first game back…just the crispness wasn’t there that we had before break.”