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Lady Trojans draw rival Boulder

The Whitehall High School girls basketball will get another shot at rival Jefferson High School (Boulder) when they open the District 5B Tournament Thursday.

The sixth seeded Lady Trojans will play the third seeded Lady Panthers Thursday at the Belgrade Events Center with tipoff set for 4:30 p.m.

The two teams have met twice this season, with Jefferson picking up a 46-37 victory December 16 in Whitehall, and a 49-32 home victory in January.

"As a team I think we match up well with Boulder. In our previous meetings we were able to play well against them, but were unable to put four quarters of basketball together to come away with the win," head coach Kelly Nieskens said.

Faced with a taller opponent, Nieskens believes his team will have to rebound better in the third game against their rival, especially at the guard position.

"Coach (Julie) Kieckbusch will be barking all week to block out and get the ball out to the guards. The kids will respond and hopefully clean up the little things to get us that victory," he said.

If Whitehall is able to defeat Jefferson Thursday, they will play in a semifinal matchup Friday at 7:30 in Belgrade against second seeded Townsend. If the Lady Trojans fall to the Panthers, they will play in an elimination game Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. The top three teams will advance to the divisional tournament.

"Postseason is the best time of year. This has been the goal for us all year and it's finally time to go out and do everything in our power to go achieve that goal," Nieskens said.

In action last week, Whitehall dropped two contests, the first a 47-26 loss to Townsend.

The Lady Trojans started strong on defense and trailed 8-6 at the end the first quarter and 20-10 at halftime.

Nieskens said their effort for the most part this season has been great as a team defensively, they just really need to take their defensive results and turn them into scores.

"When we have multiple people scoring we can be fun to watch," he said.

Whitehall was led in scoring by sophomores Asha Noyes and Hope Slater who each had eight points.

The following night, the Lady Trojans were unable to complete the season sweep against Manhattan Christian, falling 57-23. Freshman Meagan Johnson led the team with seven points.

 

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