Lady Trojans win third straight, move to 11-1

With two home victories last week, the Whitehall High School girls basketball team improved their record to a 11-1 on the season. The Lady Trojans picked up 53-43 victory Thursday night over visiting Anaconda and completed the regular season sweep over rival Jefferson with a 56-45 win to move to 5-1 in conference play.

Whitehall would outscore the visiting Copperheads in all four quarters including taking a 17-8 lead at the end of the first quarter and a 22-15 lead into the half.

Head Coach Kelly Nieskens said he loved the way the team played defense and they are trying to get back to their identity as a team who takes pride in their defensive play.

"That's who we are. We want to be that nasty team on defense, and we came out and played well on defensive tonight," he said.

Junior Asha Noyes continued her strong playing leading the team in scoring with 20 points. Brynna Wolfe finished with 12, Jada Clarkson and Meagan Johnson added six, Kendra Klapan had four, Britney Welker finished with three points and Maxine Hoagland and Ashlynn Ellison added one point for Whitehall.

Nieskens was pleased with the way his team was able to push the ball up the floor, but said there were to many turnovers.

"We had a comfortable lead most of the game. If it's a tighter game, we have got to cut the turnovers down," he said.

In their Friday night matchup against the Lady Panthers, Whitehall erased a 14-8 first quarter deficit with a strong second quarter when they outscored Jefferson 17-3. Wolfe had 19, Noyes added 18, Clarkson finished with 11, Johnson had three, Klapan and Hoagland added two and Jacy Johnson finished with one point.

The Lady Trojans will play two conferences games this week, the first a Thursday road matchup against Three Forks and a Saturday home game against Big Timber.

Nieskens said it is going to be fun going through the second round of conference games.

"We are excited to play them all again to see where we are at and make sure we are still growing and headed in the right direction," he said.