Watford girls overpower Beulah, Heart River
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
Beulah and Heart River were the latest victims of the Watford City varsity girls basketball team as the Wolves extended their winning steak to eight games. With the resounding wins over the Miners and Cougars, the Wolves improved their season record to 13-2 with less than two weeks of regular season play left.
The next action for the Wolves will be on Tuesday, Feb. 19 when Watford City hosts Parshall.
Watford City 70, Beulah 38
After a week’s layoff, Watford City’s girls basketball team made a trip to “Miner Country” last Friday to take on Beulah.
But a week of not playing didn’t seem to faze the Wolves in the least as Watford City crushed the Miners 70-38.
In what was a game of two different halves, Beulah was able to keep the game close in the first half as the Miners trailed the Wolves 33-27. But the second half saw Watford City come out and dominate the game as the Wolves outscored the Miners 37-11 en route to an easy win.
“The Miners played a real solid first half and shot the ball well to give us all we could handle,” stated John Zenz, Wolves’ head coach. “In the second half, the Wolves stepped up their defensive intensity and shut down the Miners. The first half score was 33-27 with the Wolves leading.”
McKayla Haugeberg had a dominating game for the Wolves as she almost notched a triple double. From the field, Haugeberg paced the Wolves with 20 points, including hitting on four of nine from three-point land, while grabbing 12 rebounds, dishing off nine assists, and leading the team with five steals.
Joining Haugeberg in double-digit scoring was Jessica Brown and Katie Mogen with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Rounding out the scoring for the Wolves was Madison Brown with nine points, Kara Langerud with seven points, Ricki Lindley with six points and Alyssa Prichard with five points.
Watford City 21 33 51 70
Beulah 13 27 33 38
Watford City 65, Heart River 40
In spite of shooting only 40 percent from the field and 41 percent from the free-throw line, Watford City extended its latest winning streak to eight games as the Wolves devoured the Heart River Cougars 65-40 last Saturday.
“We got off to a sluggish start, but then got rolling midway through the first quarter,” stated Zenz.
The Wolves led the Cougars 20-8 after the first quarter and then outscored Heart River 17-7 to set the tone for the remainder of the game.
“Our traps and press really bothered the Cougars in the first half,” stated Zenz. “But we didn’t defend well in the third quarter which allowed Heart River to make a run at us.”
In the third quarter, the Cougars out-scored the Wolves 21-14 to cut the lead to 51-36 going into the final eight minutes of play. But Watford City stepped it up defensively in the fourth stanza and finished strong to win 65-40.
“Nine girls scored for us,” stated Zenz. “And it’s nice when we can have that kind of balanced scoring.”
Jessica Brown led the Wolves in scoring with 15 points on seven of 12 shooting from the field, while Katie Mogen netted 13 points.
“The Cougars played a “triangle and 2” defense on McKayla and Katie and did a good job of keeping our two leading scorers in check. But the rest of our team stepped up and scored in place of them,” stated Zenz. “McKayla filled the stat sheets again and was close to a “quadruple double” as she had a team leading 11 rebounds, 10 assists and eight steals to go along with her seven points.”
Also scoring for Watford City was Amanda Mogen with nine points, McKayla Haugeberg with seven points, Ricki Lindley with six points, Kara Langerud with five points, Sadie Kieson and Madison Brown with four points each, while Alyssa Prichard ended the game with two points.
Watford City 20 37 51 65
Heart River 8 15 36 40