{"id":69488,"date":"2022-11-28T09:09:08","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T15:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=69488"},"modified":"2022-11-28T09:09:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T15:09:11","slug":"tigers-win-final-tune-up-before-miaa-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=69488","title":{"rendered":"Tigers win final tune-up before MIAA play"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

STORY BY CAYDEN SANDERS
PHOTOS BY MADISON SHAPLAND<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With MIAA play beginning this week, the Fort Hays State University women\u2019s basketball team played a post-Thanksgiving tune-up game on Saturday against Tabor College (NAIA). The Tigers took advantage of their mismatches against Tabor and beat the Bluejays 65-51. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going into the game, the Tigers have struggled against good teams early this season – playing four teams who qualified for the NCAA Tournament last season. FHSU went 2-2 against those teams so far, with five others coming up this season, so a game against a lower-division team helped FHSU prepare for MIAA play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe weren’t real sharp. We missed a lot of shots around the basket that we should have made. We weren’t strong enough to get to the line,\u201d FHSU Head Coach Tony Hobson said. \u201cWhen you get it inside like that, [you] either need to score the basket or draw foul,s so we were a little sluggish. Tabor played well, shot the ball well. But we’ll move on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a two-minute drought to start the game, FHSU built a 13-0 lead over the first seven minutes of action. Sophomore forward Jessie Sallach helped pace the Tigers early, scoring all six of her points in the first ten minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cTonight, I just focused on being patient with my moves, and let the guards clear out so I can go to work down low,\u201d Sallach said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Sallach, taking on a bigger role this season is no burden after playing significant minutes in her two prior seasons in the black and gold.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast time I was interviewed, I was just starting out getting big minutes for this team, and having confidence is what I needed to work on,\u201d Sallach said. \u201cSince then, seeing game shots go in, my confidence has been better on the floor. I can\u2019t wait to get into conference games.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another pair of Tigers took advantage of their minutes against Tabor: Clary Donica and Kia Wilson. Wilson, who missed all of last season with an injury, scored eight points in 10 minutes of action while Donica also scored eight points in 14 minutes on the court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing that Paige (Lundsford) and Talia (Kahrs) have both really just been helping me to focus on is reversing out and just looking for my shot first,\u201d Donica said. \u201cI was really focused on that tonight and I’ve been practicing that a lot. So I think that helped was keeping it simple for my game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers led the Bluejays 35-23 at halftime. The first half included a block from Olivia Hollenbeck, who is just four blocks away from 100 in her career. Only eight other Tigers have accomplished that feat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While FHSU started the game with a big lead, Tabor outscored the Tigers in the second quarter and through the first few minutes of the third quarter, pulled within eight with 6:06 remaining. However, a push to end the period put FHSU back up by double-digits, 51-35. For Hobson, playing with a lead allowed him to go deeper into his bench and get his players more experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bench got a lot more time than they have been. So these guys are all capable players and just need an opportunity,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cSo it was good to see them come in and shoot a pretty high percentage and score well off the bench.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting on the floor has been a positive experience for Wilson, after missing so much time in her career. She said it was hard to sit back and watch last year while recovering from her injury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, last year I had surgery so it’s definitely been it’s been really hard to watch,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt’s been really awesome getting back. Nobody knows the hours waiting and watching, and it’s been a long time. So it feels good to be back in the swing of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tabor also outscored FHSU 16-14 in the final quarter, so while the final margin of victory might have looked sound for FHSU, the Tigers led 60-38 at one point and the team hopes to use this game as a learning experience for putting opponents away and not letting them creep back in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don’t I don’t think any of us are comfortable with it. I mean, we won and obviously we’re going to take the win, but nothing about that was what we should have done,\u201d Donica said. \u201cWe should have just hammered that team, and we didn’t and we had way too many turnovers, our defense, we didn’t talk. It was just a lot of little things that added up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FHSU turned the ball over 10 times and allowed the Bluejays to shoot 50 percent from the floor on the game. Katie Wagner led FHSU in scoring with 16 points; however, no other Tigers scored in double figures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays State moves to 4-3 on the year and looks to start the MIAA conference schedule against Northeastern State and Rogers State. Tip-off against the Riverhawks is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Katie Wagner and Sydney Golladay get fired up during their pregame handshake.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The Fort Hays State women’s basketball team comes together in a huddle before tipoff. \n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Olivia Hollenbeck snatches the ball during tipoff, giving the Lady Tigers first possession of the game. First to score, Fort Hays puts 13 points on the board before allowing the Tabor Bluejays to make a basket.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Clary Donica pulls up for 2 during the matchup. \u201cDefense will be vital for our future games,\u201d said Donica. \u201cWe need to get that part of our game figured out. There\u2019s just little things we can fix and once we get that into place we\u2019ll be set.\u201d\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Brooke Loewe drives past a Bluejay defender, gets into the paint, and puts the ball through the hoop.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Hollenbeck fights in the lane to put up a shot.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Kia Wilson with a post move and bank shot for the Tigers.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Golladay brings the ball down the court. \u201cToday, we struggled with some things but executed our offense well,\u201d said Golladay. \u201cWe rebounded and crashed the board hard as well as got inside and finished our shots in the paint this game.\u201d\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Sasha Koenig eyes her opponent as she plays defense.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A battle between the Tigers and Bluejays is fought for a rebound during Saturday’s game. \n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Hollenbeck spins around for a block shot.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Donica attempts to drive into the paint. \u201cThe key to winning this game was battling the whole time. We had a tough time with some things like our defense and our shots being off, but we didn\u2019t let up and kept fighting through it. That’s how we keep pulling through,\u201d said Donica.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Head Coach, Tony Hobson, speaks to the girls during a timeout. \u201cOur teams very fun and energetic. This year we\u2019re pretty guard heavy but our posts are good. We have a super deep team, our bench is strong,\u201d said Golladay. \u201cI think overall we have a very competitive team.\u201d\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY BY CAYDEN SANDERSPHOTOS BY MADISON SHAPLAND With MIAA play beginning this week, the Fort Hays State University women\u2019s basketball team played a post-Thanksgiving tune-up… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":69491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,7349,3395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports","category-womens-basketball-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/11.26.22-WBB-Tabor-MadisonS_13-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69505,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69488\/revisions\/69505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}