AGWSR girls basketball rolls in Conrad

CONRAD – A lopsided first half was plenty for AGWSR girls basketball in a 63-23 victory over BCLUW at BCLUW High School on Friday night in the season opener for both teams.

The Cougars outscored BCLUW 23-4 in the first quarter and led 34-5 by the halftime break, leveraging 19 steals into some extra possessions. 

Freshman Nakia Ollivierre led the scoring with 24 points and Josie Kuper and Trevyn Smith each had double-doubles; 19 points and 12 rebounds for Kuper, 13 points and 10 rebounds for Smith, who also kicked in a team-leading seven steals.

“Nakia had a nice night for us offensively but also did a good job defensively and, for a freshman, ran our stuff pretty well, and picking her opportunities to break the defense down,” AGWSR coach Mike Finger said. “Josie did a good job inside and the girls did a good job of getting her the basketball, and Trevyn Smith is an incredible worker and hustler.

“Brynn Smith too, while she was maybe a little bit quiet offensively in terms of scoring, she did a tremendous job defensively and helped us get settled when we had a couple of possessions where we were out of sync, she did a good job of getting us back on track.”

The Cougars went on a 22-1 run between the first and second quarters.

BCLUW continued to scrap throughout and fought off the Cougars in the second half before a game-closing 11-0 run that started the continuous clock and got AGWSR on its way.

“We want to continue to get better defensively,” Finger said. “We had some possessions where we were out of position and didn’t recover quick enough. … And some of our spacing, ball reversal stuff, we need to get better at finishing around the basket.”

Friday was the first game for the Comets with Joel Johnson at the helm.

“They played good man-to-man defense and forced us not to run our offense, and we did not answer that call,” Johnson said. “The kids played hard, I can’t fault them for that. We’re gonna get better. We’re nine practices in with a new coach that runs several offenses that they have to learn.”

Comet freshman Grace Farnsworth led the Comets with eight points off the bench and Sydney Anderson added six points to pace the scoring from the starting five. 

“I’m an old school guy that doesn’t usually give freshmen a lot of varsity time, but Grace gave us some really really good minutes,” Johnson said. “So there’s things I have to rethink with what I do and not be so stubborn.

“All in all, it was a good learning experience. We’ll get better.”

In an NICL West that looks to be wide-open this year, AGWSR has a strong case for being a frontrunner with the addition of Ollivierre to a group that returns five players that saw significant playing time last season.

“The girls should feel good about their effort and their result,” Finger said. “But we know this is just one game out of 21-plus and we’ve got some stiff competition with Hudson next Tuesday.”