The Hillsboro girls got off to a sluggish start and never fully recovered en route to 55-50 loss to Goodland in the third-place game at the Trojan Classic on Saturday afternoon.
Out-hustled on both ends of the court, the Trojans trailed the Cowgirls 11-4 after one quarter. Frustrated by the performance, Coach Nathan Hiebert sent in three girls with limited varsity time this season — Maci Schlehuber, Christina Morris and Amy Bartel. The shake up seemed to give some spark to his team. With Schlehuber contributing four points, Hillsboro actually pulled into the lead late in the period before two baskets in the final 30 seconds put Goodland back on top, 25-22, at intermission.
Baskets by Tena Loewen and Allie Faul in the opening minutes of the third quarter put Hillsboro back on top, 26-25. But the Cowgirls, in response to Hillsboro?s trapping pressure, began to take advantage of the unguarded teammate for some easy baskets en route to a 42-34 lead by the end of the period.
Schlehuber scored Hillsboro?s first eight points in the fourth quarter, and the 8-3 surged pulled the Trojans to within 45-42 with 5:14 to go. Goodland nudged the margin back to seven within two minutes ,and Hillsboro never got closer than three points after that.
Loewen led the Trojans with 15 points with Addie Lackey and Schlehuber chipping in 12 each.
The loss drops HHS to 10-3 for the season.
