The Lady Pirates struggled in the first half on both offense and defense. The girls were only able to put up three points in the first half, missing almost every shot attempt. The defense had a hard time stopping the Park Hill South offensive scheme as well as the fast breaks.

The ladies have struggled all season with scoring points, only averaging thirty points a game, most of those coming in the second half, putting them in a hole early in the game and giving their opponents the early momentum. All though the offense has struggled, unlike this game the defense has played well holding their opponents to low enough scores to stay in the game.

The Lady Pirates played much better in the second half on offense, scoring sixteen of the nineteen points. The girls shot six for twenty-eight, a shot percentage of 21.4%.

Junior Post Emilee Biondo said that the team really needs to work on both offense and defense. She said they aren’t able to score enough points to keep them close to the other team.

“We have to stop turning the ball over,” Biondo said. “We have a lot to work on.”

The girl’s basketball team has turned the ball over two-hundred and fourteen times this season in their nine games. They turned the ball over on offense a season high of thirty-four times against Park Hill South, which has played a big role on why the girls are struggling on offense.

Junior Guard Ashley Cole who leads the team in points per game with ten, had eight against Park Hill South. She said the team just isn’t playing well enough right now but that they have the ability to play good.

“We can be good,” Cole said. “We just haven’t been able to score many points.”

Cole also added that the team is working hard in practice. She said she expects the team to start playing better and get some wins.

The Lady Pirates will have to win nine of their next seventeen games to be able to tie last season’s record of 9-17. The girls so far are 0-3 against conference opponents, but still have nine more conference games to go, and if they can win all of those nine games they can still have a shot to win their conference.

A few of the conference games coming up are against William Chrisman High School, Raytown High School and Raytown South High School. The ladies are also preparing to play in the Pleasant Hill High School Invitational Tournament. Their first opponent is against Grandview High School. The girls hope to do well in the tournament and in these next few conference games so that they can turn their season around.

The first half of the game was very low scoring, ending the first two quarters 10-11, the Lady Pirates trailing. The defense proved in that first half that they could stop Winnetonka and hold them to a low scoring game. The offense just couldn’t score enough to take a lead and gain momentum.

Junior Emilee Biondo said that the team is having a hard time getting shots to fall. She also said that they aren’t running their offense very well.

“Our defense is playing good,” Biondo said. “We just need to get better on offense and we will win.”

The girls had the game tied 10-10 right before half but then suffered a technical foul. Winnetonka took advantage of the foul and made a free throw right before the end of the  half to take a one point lead into the half.

The second half didn’t go as well for the Lady Pirates as their defense loosened up and allowed 24 points in the second half, losing by a final score of 23-34. The girls seemed to be much more tired in the second half, especially on defense.

The girls still struggled on the offensive side of the ball, only putting up another 13 points in the second half. The girls are just having problems getting their shots to fall. They feel as if they are taking good looks and taking the right shots but they aren’t putting them in the basket and putting points on the board.

Junior Guard Ashley Cole who has played varsity basketball since her freshman year said that the team is really struggling on offense and that they are working on it in practice. She also added that they had a key injury in the game against Winnetonka, losing Senior Guard Tayler McEnaney to an ankle injury in the first half.

“We have struggled on offense,” Cole said. “Losing Tayler is going to hurt us but hopefully someone else will step up.”

Cole scored 15 points in Monday’s game against Winnetonka, the most on the team in that game. Cole also leads the team in points scored in total season stats as well through out the first five games. Behind her was McEnaney but now that she is injured, the offense could begin to struggle even more.

The loss puts the Lady Pirate’s record at 0-5. Not the start they were looking for, but there are still plenty of games left to turn the season around and the team believes that they have the chance to do that.

Near the beginning of the game the Lady’s fell behind with a score of 8-15 at the end of the first quarter due to all the possession errors favoring the Panthers.

More than half of the points scored in the first half were free throws. But Katie Yager, Erika Harder and Brittany Cole kept the team up with three pointer after three pointer. Ending the half with a score of 19-22.

A lot more occurred in the second half of the game. With Cole and Harder starting off the half with a three point each, the game looked to be headed in the right direction. Half way through the third, Panther Courtney Claassen was injured. The game tied at 27-27. But with misses on the Pirates side the third ended with 29-33.

The Pirates caught up for a while with lots of three pointers made by Harder. However, their efforts were in vain. With Panthers Samantha Roy and Haley Shelton leading the team, they won 48-57.

The first quarter was interrupted by the fire alarm and the building was evacuated to the cold chilly weather. Once the building was cleared, the first quarter was won by Ray-Pec with a score of 9 to 17. The first basket for Belton was made by sophomore Ashley Cole. The Lady Pirates showed a lot of effort during the quarter, but could still not manage to pull the lead.

The team did not let the score of the first quarter bring them down. The team was enthusiastic and seemed to be determined to win the game against their rival school.

This determination was shown in the second quarter when the Lady Pirates came back and fought hard keeping the game from slipping away even further with a score of 26 to 29.

The third quarter was the turning point of the game for the Lady Pirates.They looked like they were playing a lot harder to defeat the Panther and that showed in the score. Even with an injury to Lady Pirate, Ashley Cole, outscoring the Panthers 41 to 36.

Sophomore Allie Tucker was a spectator at the game. She said she believed that the game started out boring, but got better as it went along.

“I’m not a very big fan of basketball, but I was still really excited during this game and was proud of the final score of the game,” Tucker said.

The Lady Pirates played very hard to defeat their opponent. This hard work led sophomore Ashley Cole to an injured ankle during the third quarter. Cole said that she believes that the team worked very hard during this game.

“Beating the Panthers gives the team a sense of pride because they are our rivals and it puts a lot more pressure on the two teams to beat each other,” Cole said.

The Lady Pirates kept their game up during the last quarter and had fans from both schools on the edge of their seats and cheering for their school of choice. Cole had determination to play in the final quarter of the game and was a great asset to the team. The game ended with an exciting victory for the Lady Pirates with a close score of 52 to 49.

The team could use a lot of fan support at their away games. To keep up with Belton High Schools Lady Pirate basketball team, go to their games or join the crew to keep Pirate spirit high.

In their first outing, the Lady Pirates played a tenacious Ruskin team. Despite their size disadvantage, the Lady Pirates held a 1-point lead at the half, but couldn’t maintain their lead in the second half, dropping a close 52-48 game to the Eagles.  Caitlyn McEnaney led Belton with 17 points in the game; Erika Harder and Katie Yager contributed 11 and 9 points, respectively.

“We had a chance to win against Ruskin, but we got out rebounded bad. If we rebounded better we probably would have won that game,” Head Coach Aaron Quinley said.

Belton faced Oak Park in their second game. Once again rebounding was an issue in the game.

“Rebounding, we have struggled in because we are a smaller team. If we play a team with size, we struggle. Just because it’s basketball, tall people help. We don’t have any tall people, so we are always fighting for the rebound,” Quinley stated.

The Lady Pirates were outgunned from the tip-off. Down 20-11 at the half, Belton fell to the Lady Northmen 46-29. Oak Park limited the Pirates’ scoring opportunities; none of the Lady Pirates scored more than 7 points.

“We played a really good school who just played well against us and will probably go on to win the tournament,” Quinley said following the game.  “Oak Park beat Park Hill South by more than twenty and beat us by 15, but we played well against them.”

On the last night of the tournament, Oak Park defeated Ruskin 42-27 to win the tournament while Belton faced off against the Park Hill South Lady Panthers. The Lady Panthers dominated the Lady Pirates from the beginning of the game. Belton’s team couldn’t rebound or score, and couldn’t stop the Park Hill South team from scoring. Down 29-6 at the half, the Lady Pirates fought a valiant fight in the second half but could not vanquish their foe, losing 59-18.

Belton seemed tired towards the end of the tournament; the weather and the defeats just seemed to beat the girls down. Their scoring dropped from 48 points in the first game to 18 points by the final game.

“We also struggled scoring. We need to keep consistent on that, but rebounding is our main focus,” Quinley said.

This week the Lady Pirates will try to redeem themselves in the 8-team Louisburg Invitational Tournament.

Despite their low attendance made mostly of family and friends the girls controlled the game early in the first quarter. Out rebounding and even scoring the lady Pirates were able to dictate the pace of the game and what looked like the game itself.

With their 16-2 lead the Pirates seemed to have a lap in their game play as the Cardinals made a run for the lead. The Pirates defense was nonexistent partially due to the fact that the Cardinals had possession of the basketball for most of the quarter. Most of the rebounds were grabbed by the visitors as they went on a 12-0 scoring run that was broken with a three point swoosh by senior Katie Yager bringing the score to 19-14 at the half.

As with so many sports and teams the third quarter can ultimately decide a game. Yager saw the importance the third quarter in their game against the Cardinals.
“The third quarter really makes it or breaks it for us and coming out we were really down,” Yager said. “But we came out and really took it to them and started scoring.”

In the third quarter the Pirates did take it to the Cardinals as they reasserted their control of the game much like in the first quarter.

The Pirates bounced back with a couple quick plays between junior Taylor McEnenany and senior Erika Harder.

“We came out and played hard and really pushed hard. We have improved since the last time we played them,” Harder said.

In the third quarter the Pirates regained control of the boards and went on a scoring run themselves, putting up 12 unanswered points. Most of those scoring opportunities were made possible by multiple steals by Harder that resulted in the end score at the end of the quarter 37-16.

With both teams changing up their play, the Cardinals going from man to a 2-3 zone and the Pirates from straight man defense to double teaming the ball, the Pirates remained in control.  Double teaming well into the fourth quarter the Pirates played hard and all their opponent could do is “finish strong” as their coach Amber Bloecher yelled out to them.

With a strong performance by his team, with the second quarter exception, head coach Aaron Quinley sees that his team is still improving as necessary this late in the season.

“Looking toward districts this team is still improving and they are a small team in size so we just need to play hard,” Quinley said.

With another win under their belt the girls look to continue getting better as they face their next opponent in the Louisburg tournament in the final week of January.

The lady’s are up against the Oak Grove boys team, Northwest Olathe
the girls and the Leavenworth boys. Currently the Leavenwoth boys are in the lead with close to 2,000 votes.

The Lady Pirates have just over 400. Head Coach Aaron Quinley said he’s excited to tell the girls and wants to get the word out since voters can vote up to ten times an hour.

“I sent out an email to all the teachers and had the office make an announcement,” Quinley said. “I’m excited to tell the girls.”

The winning team will be featured on the Hy-Vee hoops spotlight and will be featured in a story on the ten p.m. news.

An extra 1,000 votes can be added to a teams score by uploading pictures of basketball games to KMBC’s uLocal page.

Voter can vote up to 10 times every hour per IP address and to vote go to KMBC Channel 9 at http://www.kmbc.com/surveypopup/high-school-sports/26367893/detail.html.

The first quarter was interrupted by the fire alarm and the building was evacuated to the cold chilly weather. Once the building was cleared, the  first quarter was won by Ray-Pec with a score of 9 to 17.  The first basket for Belton was made by sophomore Ashley Cole. The Lady Pirates showed a lot of effort during the quarter, but could still not manage to pull the lead.  

The team did not let the score of the first quarter bring them down.  The team was enthusiastic and seemed to be determined to win the game against their rival school.  

This determination was shown in the second quarter when the Lady Pirates came back and fought hard keeping the game from slipping away even further with a score of 26 to 29.  

The third quarter was the turning point of the game for the Lady Pirates.They looked like they were playing a lot harder to defeat the Panther and that showed in the score. Even with an injury to Lady Pirate, Ashley Cole, outscoring the Panthers 41 to 36.  

Sophomore Allie Tucker was a spectator at the game. She said she believed that the game started out boring, but got better as it went along.

“I’m not a very big fan of basketball, but I was still really excited during this game and was proud of the final score of the game,” Tucker said.

The Lady Pirates played very hard to defeat their opponent. This hard work led sophomore Ashley Cole to an injured ankle during the third quarter. Cole said that she believes that the team worked very hard during this game.

“Beating the Panthers gives the team a sense of pride because they are our rivals and it puts a lot more pressure on the two teams to beat each other,” Cole said.

The Lady Pirates kept their game up during the last quarter and had fans from both schools on the edge of their seats and cheering for their school of choice.  Cole had determination to play in the final quarter of the game and was a great asset to the team. The game ended with an exciting victory for the Lady Pirates with a close score of 52 to 49.  

The team could use a lot of fan support at their away games. To keep up with Belton High Schools Lady Pirate basketball team, go to their games or join the crew to keep Pirate spirit high.

Sophomore Ashley Cole played her part and managed to score nine points during the game. She said she felt the team played a great game and she thought she did good as an individual, and that the team works really well together.

“We brought home a good win, but we could have done better this game,” Cole said. “If we had made more of our missed layups and three-pointers, we could have scored more. We had a lot of fun, though. Even though it was a pretty close game, a win is still a win.”

Senior Katie Yager said she liked how the team played on Monday night, and it felt good to beat Winnetonka.

“We’ve got a good team this year,” Yager said. “We show a lot of sportsmanship and play hard and that’s what really counts. I’m excited to see the amount of success that the rest of the  of the season has to bring us.”

The Lady Pirates, who are having a successful year so far, will go up against the Ray-Pec Panthers next week.