| Gering girls win first two home games |
 December 16, 2010 By Terry Gaston |
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 For a young and inexperienced team like the Gering girls’ basketball squad to start its season with six games in 13 days can be a daunting task. The Bulldogs and first-year head coach Adam Freeburg have bucked the conventional wisdom and finished their first two weekends with a 3-3 record, including winning their first two home games last Thursday and Friday while falling just short in a tight game at Chadron on Saturday. “This team has learned to never give up,” said Freeburg, whose team faced Wheatland, Wyo., at home Tuesday night before getting a two-week break. “This is a high effort group and they do a lot of things positively.” The Gering faithful cheered the Bulldogs to a 48-26 whipping of Mitchell in their home debut, with GHS bounding to a 17-9 lead after the first eight minutes and a 25-13 halftime advantage. The Bulldogs’ 6-foot-plus tandem pounded the visiting Tigers inside, with senior Jordan Plummer scoring a team-high 12 points and grabbing eight rebounds. Junior Bryana Larsen had a team-leading 13 rebounds and added 10 points. Defensively, junior Morgan Broussard made four steals, while junior Morgan Greene had three steals and two blocked shots. Gering returned to the GHS gym on Friday to score a 49-34 win over Alliance, with Greene pacing the host Bulldogs with 15 points and four assists. Plummer and sophomore Alexa Anderson added eight points apiece, while Larsen again led Gering on the boards with 10. Saturday’s 62-58 setback at Chadron might have been a loss on the scoreboard, but Freeburg said in spite of the Bulldogs’ free throw woes of hitting just 18 of 36 attempts (50 percent) and being outrebounded by 13, the effort was otherwise solid. “You miss 18 free throws and get beat by four, that’s pretty black and white,” he said. Greene paced Gering with 16 points and Larsen had 15 points, sharing rebounding highs with junior Kerissa Mitchell with nine boards apiece. Plummer added nine points. Entering Tuesday’s game against Wheatland, Greene held team-leading scoring honors with 11 points per game and the assist lead with 4.2 per contest. Larsen was next in scoring with 9.2 a game and had a team-best 8.3 rebounds. Plummer had 8.2 points per game through the first six contests. While Freeburg admires the improvement and teamwork the Bulldogs have displayed on the court thus far, he sees two glaring elements that need vast improvement in order to win such games like the close Chadron contest. “We need to fix the turnovers and we have to make free throws,” said Freeburg, whose team averaged 24 turnovers per game through the weekend while hitting 48 percent from the charity stripe. “If we do those two things, we will become a lot better team. But we’re sitting at a good place right now." Gering’s next action will be Dec. 28 and 29 in the Holdrege Holiday Tournament. |
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