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Lady Wildcats fall to Boyd County in SubDistrict action

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HARTINGTON - Things may have not gone the way the Hartington-Newcastle girls basketball team would have envisioned or hoped for, but the 2020-21 season still left with plenty of positive feelings.

Yes, a 45-40 sub-district semifinal defeat isn’t an ideal way to end, but a team full of freshmen and sophomore were able to figure things out enough late to make a push and wrap the campaign at 8-13 after a slow start.

“We improved as far as attitude and effort,” head coach Josh Morten said of his lady Wildcat. “We discussed halfway through the season that is something we can control, and we were able to do better there. This was a great group of girls to coach and I enjoyed every minute of it.

“The biggest challenges at times was our scoring and it boiled down to our shooting percentage. at times we shot the ball very poorly.”

In the loss against Boyd County, Morten knew his squad would be in for a battle.

“We had a game plan going in on what we needed to do and offensively we executed very well,” Morten said. “We just didn’t keep them off of the offensive boards like we had worked on in practice. They crash the boards very hard and that was a big key to the game.”

He said his team also had several missed scoring opportunities.

“We missed several shots at close range and they hit some shots that were a little surprising,” he said.

The Boyd County lead hovered around five to seven points for most of the contest until the Lady Wildcats rallied to tie things late.

“I made a mistake and pressed them at the end, and we fouled and sent them to the line and they made two freethrows,” Morten said. “We were able to get a good look at a shot with seconds left but it just didn’t go in.”

Kayden Jueden finished her career with a 22-point outburst while Alivia Morten added nine points.

Now they move into the offseason with a young core of players coming back and with plenty of learning experiences on their resume.

“There is plenty of potential with this group of girls with having such a young group,” Coach Morten said. “We won’t have a lot of girls so all of them need to get in the gym in the summer and get better. They will all need to contribute to our success.”

As for the outgoing seniors, the coaching staff is more than appreciative.

“I have tried to be a coach that doesn’t just coach basketball but give them the right tools to succeed in other aspects of their lives,” Josh Morten said. “You can take a lot from what you have learned from playing in high school sports to the real world. I always enjoy the girls and always felt like they were my own kids and treated them in that regard. These seniors have been a lot of fun coaching.”

The senior Jueden watched her squad stumble early on before figuring things out to end the campaign feelingbetter about their performances.

“We knew we were young going into the season and knew we had to put some work into the season and get it in fast to the high level that we do,” Jueden said. “We played some really awesome teams throughout the year so we knew we had to improve really fast. 

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