Bison girls slip in road loss at Colby

COLBY, Kan. -- The McCook High School girls have suffered without a victory so far this season.

The Bison girls had shown signs of improved play in recent games, but they took a step backward in a 63-29 loss at Colby, Kan., Tuesday, Jan. 12.

McCook struggled getting going offensively, with one recurring problem -- turnovers -- coming back to haunt the Bison.

"Part of it was we ran into a real solid basketball team," said McCook head coach Jeff Ellis. "Colby was pretty good. The things that they did, they did really well. They executed on the defensive side of the ball, which created mismatches and turnovers and opportunities for them all night long."

The Bison girls fell behind early and never got into the game. Colby led 17-2 after one quarter and 26-4 at halftime.

Coach Ellis said his team has to find a way to limit those turnovers.

"We have to do that or we're not going to be in very many ball games," he said. "The frustrating part is, here we put two basketball games together in a row before this game where things started to look a little better. The girls were taking a little more initiative to go create opportunities for themselves, and then we kind of took a step backwards here again -- albeit it was against a pretty darn good basketball team that dictated a lot of that stuff.

"Our rebounding and boxing out and defense had kind of came along for us the last couple weeks. We kind of struggled again a little bit against Colby in those aspects, where we had really stressed to the girls that that really had to stay constant for this basketball team, and we didn't. We came out and struggled in pretty much all aspects."

Ellis said Colby dictated the pace of the game at both ends.

"They just beat us up and down the court in all aspects," he said.

The first-year McCook coach praised his post players, senior Morgan Chitwood and junior Laura Brooks, for improved play.

"They're battling down low, we're just having a hard time getting them the ball," Ellis said.

McCook was led by Gretchen Sehnert with 8 points and Chitwood with 6.

Victory hopes Friday

The Bison girls will try and break the losing skid when Hastings invades the Senior High gym Friday, Jan. 15. McCook played the Tigers tough at the GNAC Tournament at North Platte Dec. 31. Friday's tip-off is set for 6 p.m.