By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
There isn’t any secret that the Big Foot girls basketball team wants to play fast on both sides of the court.
Visiting Turner knew that fact coming into last week’s Rock Valley Conference contest – and the Trojans did their best to stop the Chiefs in their tracks.
That ploy seemed to work at times, but not nearly enough.
Big Foot overcame a sluggish shooting effort to post a grind-it-out 44-33 victory. The win improved the Chiefs to 5-3 overall and 4-2 in the RVC.
The low-scoring affair – Big Foot led 17-16 at halftime – was a result of Turner’s strategy and open looks that just didn’t find the basket consistently enough, Big Foot coach Rick Schoenbeck said.
“(Turner) did not want to run and spread offense every time down,” he said. “We shot poorly at home, which surprised me.
“We got the transition game going in the second half. They slowed down in the second half from the defensive pressure we put on them.”
While the Chiefs’ offense was slowed to a crawl, their defense did plenty of positives in holding the Trojans to just 33 points, Schoenbeck said.
“When they slowed their offense down, we extended half-court pressure,” he said. “And they did not get good looks.”
On the other side, Turner’s packed man to man and zone defenses gave Big Foot open looks, but the Chiefs were just 16 of 52 from the field (30 percent), including a one for 11 effort (nine percent) from behind the 3-point line.
“We had open looks all day,” Schoenbeck said. “Shots just did not fall.”
Payton Courier led a balanced scoring attack with 12 points and seven rebounds, followed by Morgan Courier with 11 points and four assists and Courtney Schoenbeck with 10 points and six rebounds. Carly Snudden chipped in with six rebounds.
Big Foot is back in action next week at the two-day Badger Holiday Tournament Dec. 28 and 29. The Chiefs open with either Badger or Cudahy.
There are always things to work on, Schoenbeck said, and the non-conference games next week will give his team the perfect chance to improve.
“We want to run perfect offense by working together more,” he said. “Less one on one. And, we’d like to improve the bench (production).”
