Lady Herders improved this year, still work to do heading into the offseason

 

The Lady Herders dropped games to the Moorcroft Lady Wolves and Sundance Lady Bulldogs, eliminating them from contention in the state tournament this week. The team finished with a final record to 4-18 and 0-6 in their quadrant.

 

 Despite their record, the young players showed flashes where they held their own against teams with far more experience than them.

 

With having only one senior in Mandi Tvedt, the coach was forced to play lineups with three freshmen on the floor regularly.

 

With that came struggles in consistency and failure to put a lot of games away, but Gray says that’s part of coaching kids who are still learning the game.

 

“We made a lot of improvements this year. We won more games, and the younger kids started finding ways to win basketball games as the season went on. We came a long way as far as picking up the game and playing it like it needed to be played, we just need to continue working on playing all 32 minutes and closing the deal to win a lot more ball games next year.”

 

In order to do that, Gray said they will need to continue to improve their fundamentals, specifically shooting, team defense and ball security.

 

Seeing the Lady Herders set up on offense and move the ball just to miss a shot with a good look at the basket was an all-too common occurrence this season, which directly led to more losses than any other facet of the game.

 

Defensively, they allowed more than 45 points per game to opposing teams, a number Gray said they need to improve to win in the future.

 

Cleaning up their turnovers would kill two birds with one stone, as they would cut into points they give up in transition which was a major problem at points. When asked if the season was better or worse than he expected coming in, coach Gray said it was better without any hesitation.

 

“It was much better,” he said. “We were in a position to win quite a few games, where in the past that was never the case. The attitude was very good throughout the season. The kids wanted to learn and wanted to get better, and those are things every team needs before they can improve and find success.”