Season comes to a close for GHV girls

(Above) GHV’s Hannah Lau goes up for a shot during the North Union game. She ended the game with 24 points and nine rebounds.  Lau had a very successful career at GHV.  She ended her career with 1,003 points.  The second highest in school history.  -Reporter photo by Chris Barragy

It was a rough week for the Garner-Hayfield-Ventura girls, as they dropped the last two regular season games and also fell in the first round of the Class 3A Region 1 tournament.

North Union 45, GHV 39

Offensive struggles caused the Garner-Hayfield-Ventura (6-9, 8-12) girls to drop a 45-39 contest to North Union (13-2, 17-2) at home on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

“We struggled the entire first half to make a basket,” said Coach Matt Erpelding.  “We let the defense control the game and didn’t have any purposeful  movement in our offense.”

The problems were evident in the first quarter, as North Union outscored the Cardinals, 12-4.  Kayla Leerar scored GHV’s first basket early in the quarter.  The Cards didn’t score again until the very end of the quarter, when Hannah Lau found the basket.

GHV picked it up in the second quarter.  Lau got things rolling with two three-pointers to close the gap, 18-12.  The Warriors put in six unanswered points to head into the break with a 24-14 lead.

The third quarter saw improvement for the Cardinals, as they outscored North Union, 13-11.  Mara Anderson and Lau both connected on threes to end the third quarter trailing, 35-27.

Two baskets early in the fourth quarter by Lau closed the gap to four points, 35-31.  Jillian Heitland hit a three and Lau added a bucket and a free throw to stay in the game, 40-37.  Some free throws at the end helped the Warriors hang on for the 45-39 victory.

“As poorly as we played for three quarters, we still had a chance to win the game late.  It is frustrating to finally limit our turnovers like we have been striving to do, only to execute so poorly offensively,” said Erpelding.  “We have made some great strides from early in the season, but now we need to learn how to win games like this one.”

Lau had a fabulous game for the Cardinals, racking up 24 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and three blocked shots. She was three for seven from the three-point line.

Anderson added five points and four rebounds.

Maddie Williams and Heitland each grabbed five rebounds and Sadie Oulman had four.

Heitland also had two steals and one assist.

Bishop Garrigan 57, GHV 45

The Cardinals had a hard time containing Bishop Garrigan’s (11-5, 15-6) leading scorer on Thursday, Feb. 9, in the final game of the 2016-17  regular season.  GHV fell to the Golden Bears, 57-45.

“It was uncharacteristic of the defensive effort we have been getting the last two months to not be able to control a teams’ leading scorer,” said Coach Matt Erpelding.  “She put in 18 first half points, but we did slow her down in the second half by having Hannah Lau guard her.”

The Cardinals trailed by only four points with 2:25 remaining in the first half, before Bishop Garrigan pumped in five unanswered points to take a 29-20 lead into the half.

The Golden Bears slowly built upon their lead in the second half as they cruised to the victory.

“We lost the game from the free throw line,” said Erpelding.  “We were 4/11, while they were 17/21.  The other stats from the game were virtually identical.”

Hannah Lau and Jillian Heitland both reached double figures, with Lau scoring 22 and Heitland 12.

Lau and Sadie Oulman led the team under the boards with eight rebounds apiece.

Lau led the team in assists with three, steals with two and blocked shots with three.

Heitland also had two steals.

Forest City 63, GHV 51

Forest City ended the season for GHV in the first round of the Class 3A Region 1 tournament played on Saturday, Feb. 11, in Forest City.

“It was tough to see the season come to an end after the effort we gave in this game.  Every girl that stepped on the floor played with unbelievable effort and passion for the game,” said Coach Matt Erpelding.  “This was by far our best game in terms of being mentally focused and bringing effort for an entire 32 minutes.”

Jillian Heitland came ready to play, as she scored nine of the Cardinals’ first quarter points.  GHV had a one-point lead at the end of the quarter, 13-12.

It was back-and-forth scoring in the second quarter.  The score was knotted, 23-23, with 2:28 remaining.  The Indians sunk a three, but Jade Hanson answered that with a bucket, for a 26-25 halftime score.

Forest City capitalized on some big three-point buckets and used a solid free throw effort to slowly start to pull away from the Cardinals.  The Indians had a huge fourth quarter, where they outscored GHV 17-9, to capture the win, 63-51.

“I really feel that we simply ran out of gas late in the game, as we played with such a tremendous level of effort the entire game,” said Erpelding.  “I couldn’t be prouder of my girls.  The passion and effort displayed by them was impressive.”

Hannah Lau led the team with 20 points.  She ended her career as the second leading scorer in GHV history with 1,003 points.  Kris Neuberger holds the record with 1,040 points.  In addition to her points, she had five rebounds, four assists, one steal and four blocked shots.

Heitland also had a good game.  She was three-for-six from the three point line and ended the game with 14 points.  She also collected five rebounds, one assist and two steals.

Maddie Williams hit two three-point shots to end the game with six points.  She also had five rebounds and three assists.

The Cardinals ended their season with a conference record of 6-10 and an overall record of 8-14.